Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri

Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, also written Melputhur, lived from 1560 to between 1646 and 1666 and was a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics and the third student of Acyuta Piṣāraṭi. He was a mathematical linguist, a scholar of Sanskrit grammar, whose most important scholarly work, Prakriya-sarvasvam, sets out an axiomatic system elaborating the classical system of Panini, though he is most famous for the Narayaneeyam, a devotional composition in praise of Guruvayurappan that is still sung at the Guruvayur Temple. Born into a Brahmin family at Melputhur near the Tirur River, he studied with his father, learned the Rig Veda from Madhava, the science of debate from Damodara and Sanskrit grammar from Acyuta Piṣāraṭi, became a pandit by sixteen and married his teacher's niece.