Vidyaranya

A short life of Vidyaranya, retold from the biography published by the Sringeri Sharada Peetham.

Two brothers of Warangal

Madhava was the elder of two brahmachari brothers, born into a poor but deeply learned Brahmin family at Ekasila Nagari, the city we call Warangal. The younger brother set out toward the south, looking for the highest knowledge, and was led to Sringeri, where Vidyatirtha was then the head of the seat. In 1328 Vidyatirtha gave him sannyasa and the name Bharati Tirtha.

Madhava went looking for his brother. He reached Sringeri and found him there, serving as the junior head. At Bharati Tirtha's request, Vidyatirtha took Madhava into sannyasa in 1331 and named him Vidyaranya, a forest of knowledge. Because his younger brother had been initiated first, he was honoured as the senior of the two.

Kashi and Badrika

Vidyaranya travelled north, first to Kashi and then to Badrikashrama. There the sage Vyasa himself, it is told, initiated him into the mysteries of Sri Vidya.

The hill by Hampi

On his return to the south, he sat in meditation on Matanga Hill, near Hampi. Two scholarly brothers, Madhava and Sayana, sons of Mayana of the Bharadvaja family, came to him for his blessing. He gave them his unfinished commentaries on the Vedas and other works. They completed them and published them under their own names, as the Madhaviyam and the Sayaniyam. Later they served as ministers in the kingdom of Vijayanagara, under Bukka and under Harihara the First and the Second.

The city by the river

Two other brothers, Harihara and Bukka, the sons of Sangama, were led by dreams to seek the sage on the same hill. It is told that they had been held captive in Delhi, and that there, as the account has it, they were made to embrace Islam. The Sultan then sent them south with an army to put down revolts in the Deccan. Instead, at the sage's direction, they declared themselves independent.

They began their kingdom on the left bank of the Tungabhadra, and later, on his advice, moved to the right bank. The city was laid out under his eye in the form of the Sri Chakra, with the temple of Virupaksha at its centre and nine gates around it. It was called Vidyanagara, the city of knowledge, and afterward Vijayanagara, the city of victory.

A copper plate records the founding in 1336. It says that Harihara was seated on the throne as Vidyaranya directed, and that he made sixteen great gifts. Harihara laid his royal insignia at the sage's feet, and received from him the teaching of the Self. He took the titles Srimad Rajadhiraja Parameshwara, Aparimita Pratapavira and Narapati. For this, Vidyaranya earned a title 'Karnataka Simhasana Prathishtapanacharya', meaning the one who established the Karnataka throne, which is still borne by every head of the Sringeri seat.

Back to Sringeri

When Vidyatirtha died, Bharati Tirtha became the eleventh head of the seat and held it from 1333 until 1380. He began to build the Vidyashankara temple over the chamber where his own teacher had entered samadhi, while Vidyaranya went on to Varanasi.

In 1346 Bukka and Harihara came to Sringeri to ask Bharati Tirtha's blessing, and gave lands to the seat. Bukka carried Bharati Tirtha's letter to Vidyaranya in Kashi, asking him to return. He came south, stopped at Hampi, where he had earlier set up a monastery near the Virupaksha temple, and from there went on to Sringeri with Bukka.

The last years

After Bharati Tirtha's samadhi in 1380, Vidyaranya took the seat as the twelfth head. He held it for six years, though he had been joined to Sringeri for more than fifty. In those years he initiated the emperor into the teaching of the Self.

Under his guidance the old way of worship was revived in the south. Temple worship was restored at Srirangam and Madurai, where it had stopped, and the temples around Sringeri were repaired and enlarged. The Vidyashankara temple, built over his teacher's samadhi, is counted as the finest of the new buildings, and a second temple, the Vidyavishweswara, was built in his honour. He made grants for the worship of Gopinatha at Paschimavahini, a few furlongs from Sringeri, and consecrated lingas and Sri Chakras at many holy places. Inscriptions in Mysore record hundreds of temples renewed by the emperors and their chiefs under his direction or in his honour. From this time the Sringeri seat also took on the task of guiding the worship and the religious life of its followers, besides teaching the knowledge of Brahman.

He wrote the Panchadasi, for those who seek the Self, and the Jivanmukti Viveka, for renunciates. A copper plate of May 1384 praised the power of his teaching as greater than that of Brahma, and the Sringeri plate of Harihara the Second, of May 1386, says that the learned had concluded that he was the Supreme Light in human form, after setting aside Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

In 1386 he attained videha mukti, and left his body. Soon afterward Harihara came to Sringeri and founded the agrahara of Vidyaranyapura in his honour. Though he headed the seat for only six years, his tie to it lasted over five decades, and the years of Vidyatirtha, Bharati Tirtha and Vidyaranya are remembered as the time when the Sringeri seat rose to its greatest eminence.