Tenali Ramakrishna (born Garlapati Ramakrishnayya; also known as Tenali Rama or Tenali Raman) was an Indian poet, scholar, thinker and a special advisor in the court of Sri Krishnadevaraya who ruled from C.E. 1509 to 1529. He was a Telugu poet who hailed from what is now the Andhra Pradesh region, generally known for the folk tales which focus on his wit. He was one of the Ashtadiggajas or the eight poets at the court of Krishnadevaraya, the Vijayanagara emperor. When he was a child his father was led to death. To overcome the depression that Rama faced, his mother Lakshamma took him to Vijayanagara where he was an advisor and the 8th sai. He was also a great scholar of several languages that included Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam and Marathi.
