Vyasatirtha
Vyāsatīrtha, also called Vyasaraja or Chandrikacharya, was a Hindu philosopher, scholar, polemicist, commentator and poet belonging to the Madhwacharya's Dvaita order of Vedanta. As the rajaguru of Vijayanagara Empire, Vyasatirtha was at the forefront of a golden age in Dvaita which saw new developments in dialectical thought, growth of the Haridasa literature under bards like Purandara Dasa and Kanaka Dasa and an increased spread of Dvaita across the subcontinent. He himself composed many kīrtanas in Kannada and Sanskrit.
Three of his polemically themed doxographical works Nyayamruta, Tatparya Chandrika and Tarka Tandava documented and critiqued an encyclopaedic range of sub-philosophies in Advaita, Visistadvaita, Mahayana Buddhism, Mimamsa and Nyaya, revealing internal contradictions and fallacies. His Nyayamruta caused a stir in the Advaita community across the country requiring a rebuttal by Madhusudhana Saraswati through his text, Advaitasiddhi. He is considered as an amsha of Prahlada in the Madhva Parampara.
Born into a Brahmin family as Yatiraja, Bramhanya Tirtha, the pontiff of the matha at Abbur, assumed guardianship over him and oversaw his education. He studied the six orthodox schools of Hinduism at Kanchi and subsequently, the philosophy of Dvaita under Sripadaraja at Mulbagal, eventually succeeding him as the pontiff. He served as a spiritual adviser to Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya at Chandragiri though his most notable association was with the Tuluva king Krishna Deva Raya. With the royal patronage of the latter, Vyasatirtha undertook a expansion of Dvaita into the scholarly circles, through his polemical tracts as well as into the lives of the laymen through Carnatic classical devotional songs and Krithis. In this regard, he penned several kirtanas under the pen name of Krishna. His famous compositions are Krishna Nee Begane, Dasarendare Purandara, Krishna Krishna Endu, Olaga Sulabhavo and many more.
Politically, Vyasatirtha was responsible for the development of irrigation systems in villages such as Bettakonda and establishment of several Vayu temples in the newly conquered regions between Bengaluru and Mysore in-order to quell any rebellion and facilitate their integration into the Empire.
For his contribution to the Dvaita school of thought, he, along with Madhva and Jayatirtha, are considered to be the three great saints of Dvaita. Scholar Surendranath Dasgupta notes, "The logical skill and depth of acute dialectical thinking shown by Vyasa-tirtha stands almost unrivalled in the whole field of Indian thought".
Historical sources
Information about Vyasatirtha is derived from his biography by the poet Somanatha Kavi called Vyasayogicharita and inscriptional evidence. Songs of Purandara Dasa and traditional stories yield important insights too. Though Vyasayogicharita is a hagiography, unlike other works in the genre, it is free of embellishments such as performance of miracles and some of its claims can be corroborated with inscriptional evidence. Somanatha mentions at the end of the text that the biography was approved by Vyasatirtha himself, implying the contemporary nature of the work. While some scholars attest the veracity of the text to the claim that Somanatha was a Smartha hence free of sectarian bias, others question the claim citing a lack of evidence.Context
The philosophy of Dvaita or Tattvavada was an obscure movement within Vedanta in medieval India. Philosophically, its tenets stood in direct opposition to Advaita in that its progenitor, Madhva, postulated that the self and god are distinct and that the world is real. As Advaita was the prevailing sub-sect of Vedanta at the time, the works of Madhva and his followers came under significant attack and ridicule. Madhva deployed his disciples to promulgate the philosophy across the country, which led to the establishment of a small and diffuse network of mathas, or centres of worship, across the subcontinent. The early years of Dvaita were spent spreading its basic tenets including participating in debates with the Advaita scholars.Philosophical improvements were pioneered by Padmanabha Tirtha and subsequently perfected by Jayatirtha. Dasgupta contends that the latter's contributions brought Dvaita up to the standards of intellectual sophistication set by Advaita and Visistadvaita. By imbuing the nascent philosophy with structure and expanding upon Madhva's terse texts, he reinforced the intellectual position of Madhva and set the standard for Dvaita literature through his seminal work, Nyaya Sudha.
Subsequent authors such as Vishnudasacharya further expanded upon these texts and authored commentaries branching into diverse fields such as Mimamsa and Navya Nyaya, a tradition which would continue for centuries. Despite the intellectual growth, due to the turbulent political atmosphere of India at the time, penetration of Dvaita into the cultural collective of the subcontinent was limited. It was not until Sripadaraja, the pontiff of the matha at Abbur, who aligned himself with the Vijaynagara king Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya and served as his guru, that Dvaita would receive royal encouragement and a certain degree of power. But the Smartha Brahmins, adhering to the principles of Advaita, and Sri Vaishnavites, following the Visistadvaita philosophy of Ramanuja, controlled the Shiva and Vishnu temples respectively, thus limiting the influence of Dvaita.
Early life
Vyasatirtha was born Yatiraja into a Madhva Brahmin family to Ballanna and Akkamma in a hamlet called Bannur. According to Vyasayogicharita, the childless couple approached saint Bramhanya Tirtha, who granted them a boon of three children with the condition that the second child, who would turn out to be Yatiraja, be handed over to him. After Yatiraja's upanayana, Bramhanya Tirtha assumed guardianship over the child. Bramhanya was surprised by the precocious intellect of the child and intended to ordain him as a monk. Yatiraja, anticipating the ordination, decided to run away from the hermitage. While resting under a tree, he had a vision of Vishnu, who urged Yatiraja to return, which he did. He was subsequently ordained as Vyasatirtha. Indologist B.N.K Sharma contends that Vyasatirtha would have been 16 years of age at this time.After the death of Bramhanya Tirtha during the famine of 1475–1476, Vyasatirtha succeeded him as the pontiff of the matha at Abbur in 1478 and proceeded to Kanchi, which was the centre for Sastric learning in South India at the time, to educate himself on the six orthodox schools of thought, which are: Vedanta, Samkhya, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vaisheshika and Yoga. Sharma conjectures that the education Vyasatirtha received in Kanchi helped him become erudite in the intricacies and subtleties of Advaita, Visistadvaita, Navya Nyaya and other schools of thought. After completing his education at Kanchi, Vyasatirtha headed to Mulbagal to study the philosophy of Dvaita under Sripadaraja, whom he would consider his guru, for a period of five to six years. He was subsequently sent to the Vijayanagara court of Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya at the behest of Sripadaraja.
At Chandragiri
Vyasatirtha was received by Saluva Narasimha at Chandragiri. Somanatha speaks of several debates and discussions in which Vyasatirtha was triumphant over the leading scholars of the day. He also talks about Vyasatirtha giving spiritual guidance to the king. Around the same time, Vyasatirtha was entrusted with the worship of the Venkateshwara deity at Tirupati and undertook his first South Indian tour. After the death of Saluva Narasimha, Vyasatirtha remained at Chandragiri in the court of Narasimha Raya II until Tuluva Narasa Nayaka declared himself to be the de facto ruler of Vijayanagara. At the behest of Narasa, Vyasatirtha moved to Hampi and would remain there for the rest of his life. After the death of Narasa, his son Viranarasimha Raya was subsequently crowned. Some scholars argue against the claim that Vyasatirtha acted as a spiritual adviser to Saluva Narasimha, Narasimha II and Vira Narasimha due to the lack of inscriptional evidence.At Hampi
At Hampi, the new capital of the empire, Vyasatirtha was appointed as the "Guardian Saint of the State" after a period of prolonged disputations and debates with scholars led by Basava Bhatta, an emissary from the Kingdom of Kalinga. His association with the royalty continued after Viranarasimha Raya overthrew Narasimha Raya II to become the emperor. Fernão Nunes observes that "The King of Bisnega, everyday, hears the teachings of a learned Brahmin who never married nor ever touched a woman" which Sharma conjectures is Vyasatirtha. Sharma also contends that it was around this time that Vyasatirtha had begun his work on Tatparya Chandrika, Nyayamruta and Tarka Tandva.After the accession of Krishnadeva Raya, Vyasatirtha, who the king regarded as his kuladevata, greatly expanded his influence by serving as an emissary and diplomat to the neighbouring kingdoms while simultaneously disseminating the philosophy of Dvaita into the subcontinent. His close relationship to Krishnadeva Raya is corroborated by inscriptions on the Vitthala Temple at Hampi and accounts by the Portuguese traveler Domingo Paes.
Vyasatirtha was also sent on diplomatic missions to the Bijapur Sultanate and accepted grants of villages in newly conquered territories for the establishment of Mathas. Stoker conjectures that this was advantageous to both the king and Vyasatirtha as the establishments of Mathas in these newly conquered regions led to political stability and also furthered the reach of Dvaita.
Somanatha writes of an incident where Krishnadeva Raya was sent a work of criticism against Dvaita by an Advaita scholar in Kalinga as a challenge. After Vyasatirtha retaliated accordingly, Krishnadeva Raya awarded Vyasatirtha with a ratnabhisheka which Vyasatirtha subsequently distributed among the poor. The inscriptions speak of grants of villages to Vyasatirtha from Krishnadeva Raya around this period, including Bettakonda, where he developed large irrigation systems including a lake called Vyasasamudra. This period of Vyasatirtha also saw the establishment of Dasakuta, a forum where people gathered and sung hymns and devotional songs. The forum attracted a number of wandering bards such as Purandara Dasa and Kanaka Dasa.