Narayana Bhattathiri of Melpathur

Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri (Malayalam: മേൽപ്പത്തൂർ നാരായണ ഭട്ടതിരി Mēlpattūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri; 1560–1646/1666), third student of Achyuta Pisharati, was a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. He was a mathematical linguist (vyakarana). His most important scholarly work, Prakriya-sarvasvam, sets forth an axiomatic system elaborating on the classical system of Panini. However, he is most famous for his masterpiece, Narayaneeyam, a devotional composition in praise of Guruvayurappan (Krishna) that is still sung at Guruvayur Temple. Bhattathri was from a village named Melpathur at Kurumbathur in Athavanad Panchayat near Kadampuzha, very close to the Tirur River, as well as near to the holy town of Thirunavaya and Bharathappuzha, that was famed as the theatre of the Mamankam festival, in Malappuram district. He was born in 1560 in a pious Brahmin family, as the son of Mathrudattan Bhattathiri, a pandit himself. Bhattathiri studied from his father as a child. He learned the Rig Veda from Madhava, Tharka sastra (science of debate in Sanskrit) from Damodara and Vyakarana (Sanskrit grammar) from Achyuta Pisharati. He became a pandit by the age of 16. He married his guru Achuta Pisharati's niece and settled at Thrikkandiyur in Tirur. He was one of the last mathematicians of the Sangamagrama school, which had been founded by Madhava in Kerala, South India and included among its members: Parameshvara, Neelakanta Somayaji, Jyeshtadeva, Achyuta Pisharati, Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri and Achyuta Panikkar. It flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries and the original discoveries of the school seems to have ended with Bhattathiri.