Tenali Ramalinga's Royal Entry

Among the boys, Ramalinga had both good and bad Tenali Ramalinga Stories reputations for his cunning, both in a positive sense and a negative sense. Once the local king happened to visit tenali and inspect the school where Rama Krishna studied in. The king put the boys in the class a question:

"Who is the most intelligent boy among you?"

None dared to answer the king. But Ramakrishna stood up to answer, and said:

"It is me."

This answer pleased the king, and he hugged the boy, and put no more questions. He said that Ramalinga would come up in life. In fact, he came up in life.

Ramalinga learnt prosody: The use of rhyme and rhythm, meter and diction by his constant, touch with his "Bhatrajas" (court flatterers in caste) who are his friends in his native place, Tenali. Slowly he acquired scholarship by constant study of books. Now the young Ramalinga was to eke out his living as he had been burdened with wife and a child.

Everyone knew that the king of Vijayanagar was a great lover of literature, he himself being proficient with Sanskrit, Kannada, and Telugu, and that he would readily receive the scholars and poets, and provide them jobs in his court. Hearing this, he left tenali for vijayanagar in search of a job in the court.

Ramakrishna went to Tatacharya, the poet who had a great influence in the court. He promised Ramakrishna to introduce him to the king and never fulfilled his promise. All other efforts of him to have "the Darsan" (meeting) failed till Nandi Timmanna favoured Ramalinga:

One day Ramalinga went to Nandi Timmanna, a poet-laureate in the court, and met him in his house. He praised the poet, reciting lines extempore. Which pleased him most. Nandi Timmanna presented him with the shawl, which he had received, from Sri Krishna Devaraya the previous day.

Wearing the present, Tenali Ramalinga went to the court, when the king was holding the session. Seeing the stranger with the felicitated shawl of the poet, Nandi Timmanna, the king expressed his surprise:

"How did you get that shawl?"

Ramakrishna, fearless as he was, stood before the king and said the following words in a humble tone:

"Maha Prabhu" (great lord), the poet Timmanna, perhaps, had pleased you with his poetry to have felicitations of the shawl. I, in town, praised and pleased him to have that shawl from him. I am wearing it today to show before you the token of my merit.

This audacity and wit of Tenali Ramalinga pleased sri Krishna Devaraya.

That is how he got the royal entry.