Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets/Chakrapah
CHAKRAPAH.
This poet was a bramin of the Datta family and a native of Tettu, near Mannar Polure in the Nellore district; he was in indigent circumstances and a strict worshipper of Siriram, by the favor of which god (according to tradition) he acquired a quick genius, and not by his own exertions. Chakrapah flourished about one hundred and fifty years ago, and was contemporary with Bangaru Yachama Nadu zemindar of Kalahasti. When this poet was sixteen years of age, he began to compose verses; he was very apt and ready in rhyming, and used often to versify what was spoken to him in colloqual discourse. The fame of this poets talents reached the ears of Yachama Nadu, who became very anxious to see him on that acount, and sent for him, but the poet declined going as his family, would want the necessarise of life should he be absent. The wife of Chakrapa was far advanced in pregnancy, and as he expected her to lie in, and could not procure a milch buffalo, and other necessaries, for the occasion he proceeded to Kalahasti in order to raise funds; while on his journey he chanced to meet Yachama Naidu, who was returning in a palankeen from a hunting excursion. He put several questions to the poet, which he answered in beautiful verse, which so pleased the aforesaid Rajah, that he invited him to his court, and desired him to write one hundred stanzas, in praise to the God Sriram, Chakrapa executed this task with great credit to himself, and so much to the satisfaction of Yachama Nadu, that he offered the poet any reward that he should desire. Chakrapa asked for eighty seers of cholam grain; but the Rajah was more munificent than he promised to be, for he presented the poet with a tract of land that yielded yearly the quantity of produce he named, besides conferring on him very valuable presents, and furnishing him with a guard for his safe conduct home to his native village. Chakrapa did not write any work on any useful subject, all his effusions being confined to poems in praise of the God Sriram; this poet never flattered any individual of note to forward any mercenary views: he died when he was sixty years of age, in by no means affluent circumstances.