Tikkana was born in 1205 in Patur village, Kovur, Nellore district during the Golden Age of the Kakatiya dynasty.

[citation needed] Tikkana was a minister of the Nellore Choda ruler Manuma-siddhi II.

He faced Tikkana as an emissary to the court of his overlord, the Kakatiya king Ganapati-deva.

Ganapati received Tikkana warmly, and sent an army that re-established Manuma-siddhi II on the throne of Nellore.

[citation needed] In the colophons of his work, Tikkana calls himself "a friend to both [kinds of] poets" (Ubhaya-kavi-mitra).