Bammera Potana
15th century · Telangana · Telugu Bhāgavatam
Bammera Potana was a poet and farmer who rendered the Bhāgavata Purāṇa into Telugu as the Āndhra Mahābhāgavatamu. Its verses — the stories of Gajendra, Prahlāda, Dhruva and the child Kṛṣṇa — are among the most loved in Telugu, learned by heart by children and recited by elders.
Tradition says Potana refused to dedicate his work to a king for reward, offering it instead to Rāma, and lived simply by farming. He is remembered as a model of a poet who would not sell his art.
Tradition says that Potana once could not finish a verse and went out to work in the fields. When he returned, his daughter said he had already come home and written it — and he understood that Rāma himself had completed the line.
Āndhra Mahābhāgavatamu · Telugu · Gajendra Mokṣa