Chattampi Swami lived in a period of Sanskrit dominance. At that time in Sweet Manipravalam style as well as in simple Malayalam Swami has composed Mukthakas, letter poems, poems with riddles and answers etc. Swami would have got a dominant position in Malayalam poetry if he had concentrated on that area. His keerthans, which are available, even though a few, are comparable to that of the best. No one knows how many keerthans he has composed. Swami wrote many bhajan songs in Tamil also on various occasions of which most of them were lost by now. Many were never recorded in paper. As he led a wandering life, if he has noted some poems in paper they have been left with those who are with him when he wrote them. Many remained only in the remembrance of those who heard him or who heard his disciples reciting them. Only a very few got preserved because they were published by his friends or disciples in some contexts.

Extract from: Chattampi Swami: An Intellectual Biography. By R. Raman Nair and L. Sulochana Devi. Trivandrum, Centre for South Indian Studies, 2010

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