in 1904. The same year, he founded Vivekodayam, a literary journal in Malayalam, and assumed its editorship. Under his leadership, the magazine became a monthly from a bi-monthly. In 1913, he was elected to the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly (Sri Moolam Praja Sabha), the first popularly elected legislature in the history of India. He relinquished the position at SNDP in 1919 and a year later, took over the editorship of Pratibha, another literary magazine In 1921, he started a clay tile factory, Union Tile Works, in Aluva but when it was found that the factory was polluting the nearby palace pond, he shifted the project to a site near Aluva river and handed over the land to SNDP for building an Advaitashramam. Later, he moved to Thonnakkal, a village in the periphery of Thiruvananthapuram, where he settled with his wife. In 1923, he contested in assembly election from Quilon constituency but lost to Sankara Menon. Asan married Bhanumathiamma, the daughter of Thachakudy Kumaran Writer who was a cousin of Padmanabhan Palpu in 1917. Death On January 16, 1924, he died by drowning, when Redeemer, the boat he was traveling capsized in River Pallana. His body was recovered after two days and the place where his mortal remains were cremated is known as Kumarakodi. Legacy Kumaran Asan was one of the triumvirate poets of modern Malayalam, along with Vallathol Narayana Menon and Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer. Some of the earlier works of the poet were Subramanya Sathakam and Sankara Sathakam, which were devotional in content but his later poems were marked by social commentary. He published Veena Poovu (the fallen flower) in December 1907 in Mithavadi of Moorkoth Kumaran which went on to become a literary classic in Malayalam; its centenary was celebrated in 2017 when a book, Veenapoovinu 100 was published which carried an introduction by M. M. Basheer and an English translation of the poem by K. Jayakumar. Prarodanam, an elegy, mourning the death of his contemporary, friend and grammarian, A. R. Raja Raja Varma, Khanda Kavyas (poems) such as Nalini, Leela, Karuna, Chandaalabhikshuki, Chinthaavishtayaaya Seetha, and Duravastha are some of his other major works. Besides, he wrote two epics, Buddha Charitha in 5 volumes and Balaramayanam, a three-volume work. Honours In 1958, when Joseph Mundassery was the Minister of Education, the Government of Kerala acquired Asan's house in Thonnakkal and established the Kumaran Asan National Institute of Culture