The rules of alliteration of yamaka poetry are complex and rigorous, involving repetition of the same combination of syllables, split in different ways to convey different meanings. As a difficult discipline attempted by few Sanskrit poets, the skill and level attained by Vasudeva is very creditable. Vasudeva who lived during the 10 th century CE was the literary genius who created the Yudhishiravijaya, Tripura Dahanam and Saurikathodaya, yamaka (alliterative) poems in Sanskrit. He was a namboodiri Brahmin of the Pattattu family near Thiruvullakkavu temple in Perumanam village, a few miles south of Thrissur in Kerala. Literary evidence suggests that he was the pupil of Bharata Guru, a scholar and contemporary of King Kulasekhara of Mahodayapuram. Kulashekara, as King Ramavarma was known, was Vasudeva’s patron and in generally identified with Kulashekhara Varman (900 CE), who wrote two plays, Subhadra Dhananjaya and the Tapati Samvarana. The linguistic peculiarities of Vasudeva