Tirumalamba, a poetess of the Vijayanagara Empire, wrote the Varadambikaparinayam, the story of marriage of King Acyuta Deva Raya, in Sanskrit which forms the 5th volume of the series: Women Writings in Sanskrit. In the court of King Acyutaraya (1529-42 CE) of Vijayanagara there was a poetess of great merit and her name was Oduva Tirumalamba. She was employed as a reader in the royal court whose duty was perhaps the reading of poetical and other compositions to the ladies of the royal family as well as to the royal court. Tirumalamba was popularly known as Oduva (reader) Tirumalamba. Evidently she was a genius, since she was an excellent musician and grammarian, possessing in addition a good command of rhetoric and diction. She was a scholar of Hindu epics, poetry, drama and philosophy and had other accomplishments also; she was a linguist and could write in many scripts.
