… Manorama was born in 1760 as a member of the Kilakke Kovilakam (Mal. kilakke kōvilakam8o). We do not know if she wrote any particular work in Sanskrit but her reputation as an eminent Sanskrit scholar has survived her. The names of her teachers are known81 and at least one of her pupils achieved fame. This is Arur Madhavan Atitiri (Mal. ārūrmādhavan ațitiri), the author of the Uttaranaiṣadha. in which he praises his teacher:
yaṁ vidyarthinam arthapoṣam apuṣad rājnī puro-mandira-
kṣmā-bhṛt–sindhu-pa–vamśa-bhūḥ su-viduṣī vidyut-prakāśā bhuvi //82
This highly learned queen, belonging to the race of the Kings of Ocean, resembling the lightening on earth, was feeding this pupil with nourishing wealth/meanings.
Tradition has it that as a twelve-year-old girl she was able to recite and explain Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s Prauḍhamanoramā, an auto-commentary to his grammatical treatise Siddhantakaumudī. That is why she was called Manoramā.
After the death of her first husband, Rama Varma of the Beypur (Anglicized Beypore: Mal. beypur) royal family, she became the wife of Pakkaṭṭu Bhaṭṭatiri (Martin-Dubost 1983: 132). Alas, he did not know the grammar of Sanskrit at all!83 Manorama expressed her sheer disappointment composing a stanza known up till now to Sanskrit scholars in Kerala:
yasya ṣaṣṭhī caturthī ca “vihasya” ca “vihāya” ca /
“ahaṁ” “kathaṁ” dvitīyā syād, dvitīyā syām aham katham //84For him, who thinks that vihasya and vihāya are the sixth and the fourth cases and aham is the second case. how can I be the second (i.e. the better-half, a wife)?