Annamacharya

◐ Confidence: medium Last verified: 12 Oct 2026

Period

1408 to 1503 (as usually given)

Language(s)

Telugu

Biography

A Telugu composer associated with the Venkateswara temple at Tirumala. His songs, called sankirtanas, praise Venkateswara and fall into spiritual and romantic groups. They are reported to have been engraved on copper plates, stored at Tirumala, forgotten for a long time and retrieved in 1922.

Notable contributions

Left a very large body of devotional songs in Telugu. Traditional accounts credit him with about 32,000 songs. The number said to survive differs by source, about 12,000 in one account and about 14,000 in another, so the figures should be treated cautiously.