Madhvacarya

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February 10th, 2003, Monday (Navami)

 

Disappearance day of Sri Madhvacarya (Ananda Tirtha)

 

 

Srimad Ananda Tirtha, also known as Sukha Tirtha, Purnabodha and

Purnapragya, is the founder of the doctrine of Tattvavada. He is the one of

the great acaryas of Vedanta and is also one of the commentators on the

Brahma-Sutra of Veda Vyasa. His doctrine asserts, that the differences are

eternally real and that hence there is more than one absolute real and that

Hari (Visnu) is the only entity praised in the srutis and their adjuncts.

Thus he always identifies the Brahman of the Upanisads with Visnu and

forcefully argues against the dichotomy of srutis (tattvavedaka /

atattvavedaka) as claimed by Sri Sankaracarya, saying that such arbitration

of apauruseya scripture is unacceptable both logically and spiritually. He

also emphasizes that it is important to understand and specifically reject

other schools' precepts and hence devotes much time to nitpicking analyses

and denunciations of other doctrines.

 

Srimad Ananda Tirtha is commonly identified with Madhva, the third

avatara of Mukhya Prana, the god of life, as given in the Balittha Sukta of

the Rg Veda. The first two avataras are Hanuman and Bhimasena and the

thirdis Madhva who came down to Earth as a sannyasi in order to avoid

decimating the forces of evil (as he had done on the previous two occasions

and as he would have done again - upsetting the flow of Kali-yuga in the

process - if he were not a sannyasi). Srimad Ananda Tirtha himself makes the

claim to being Madhva in several instances, one of which is in the

Visnu-tattva-vinirnaya verse given on the cover page of this section. It was

recognized in his own time and it has been documented that he had all

two-and-thirty subha-laksanas that define a rju-tattvika-yogi, including the

prescribed height of six-and-ninety inches ("sannavati angulo apetam").

 

However, he is firmly set against the notion of accepting doctrines

because they come from prophets or claimed gods - he refuses to accept that

it is possible to derive a meaningful spiritual system based on any but the

apauruseya texts (the Vedas/Upanisads/srutis) and their adjuncts (the

Iti-hasas, Puranas, etc.). He also dismisses claims that only part of the

Vedas are useful and claims that even the so-called karma-kanda portions of

them are only meant to worship Hari.

 

The earliest and most authentic biography of Srimad Ananda Tirtha is

the Sumadhva-Vijaya, a.k.a. Madhva Vijaya, by Narayana Pandita, the son of

his close disciple Trivikrama Pandita. There are other English biographies

by C. M. Padmanabhachar, C. N. Krishnasvami Ayyar, S. Subbarao, and C. R.

Krishnarao, among others, but these are not truly independent efforts, since

they draw very deeply upon Narayana Pandita's work.

 

Madhva was known as Vasudeva as a child and was born in response to

a prayer by some brahmanas of the Bhagavata sampradaya, as a result of which

Visnu who Himself does not incarnate during Kali-yuga ordered His chief aide

Mukhya Prana a.k.a. Vayu to go to Earth and rescue the mumuksus from the

unrelenting deluge of the illusionist schools. Therefore Vayu was born in

Pajaka-ksetra near Udupi (in modern Karnataka state) to Madhya-geha Bhatta.

Even as a child he was extraordinary in every respect, repeatedly astounded

his teachers and performed several miracles, a notable one being when he

freed his father from the clutches of a loan shark by giving him a handful

of tamarind seeds which satisfied the latter completely. He also killed the

demon Manimanta who attacked him in the form of a snake by crushing the

snake's head under his toe.

 

At the age of eight or thereabouts, he announced to his parents his

intention to take up sannyasa and on noting their distress at this

pronouncement, promised to wait until another son was born to them. Finally,

at the age of eleven, upon the birth of a younger brother (who many years

later joined his order as Visnu Tirtha) he was ordained into sannyasa whence

he was given the name Ananda Tirtha by his guru Acyutapreksa Tirtha, a.k.a.

Acyuta-pragya Tirtha. Soon afterward, when his guru attempted to educate

him, he astounded the former by his knowledge. It is said that when his guru

tried to teach him the noted Advaita text Ista-siddhi, he pointed out, to

Acyutapreksa Tirtha's amazement, that there were 30 errors in the very first

line of that work, where its author Vimuktatman pays obeisance to himself by

saying something like: "The only truth is the soul's empirical knowledge. In

the presence of this truth the world appears to be an illusory play. The

essential soul manifests itself as I, you and everything..."

 

It was this profound knowledge of all subjects that earned him the

title of "Purna-pragya", or "the one of complete wisdom." The initially

discomfited but finally greatly pleased Acyutapreksa Tirtha soon gave up

trying to educate the master and himself made a full conversion to

Tattvavada under the name Purusottama Tirtha.

 

Srimad Ananda Tirtha is known for his skill at debate and repartee,

which were amply evident when he roundly trounced all opponents who dared

take him on. One early convert to his school was Sobhana Bhatta; after

losing to Madhva in debate, he accepted the latter as his Guru, and was

given sannyasa under the name Padmanabha Tirtha. Two other noted opponents

whom Purna-pragya defeated in debate and converted to ardent devotees were

Trivikrama Pandita and Syama Sastri - the latter accepted sannyasa as

Narahari Tirtha.

 

Madhva made two trips to Badarikasrama, the abode of Badarayana

a.k.a. Veda Vyasa, and on the first, obtained the imprimatur of BadarayaNa

Himself for his Bhasya on the Bhagavad-gita, when the latter made the

correction "vaksyami lesatah" ("I state infinitesimally"), in place of

"vaksyami saktitah" ("I state as best as I can"). He also founded the Krsna

temple at Udupi, when he rescued by his spiritual power a ship in distress

on the high seas and got from its captain the apparently useless gift of a

large mound of gopi-candana mud that had been used as the ship's ballast and

which broke open to reveal the long-concealed icons of Krsna, Durga and

Balarama. This is believed to be the occasion when he composed the Dvadasa

Stotra, a set of twelve stotras in praise of Visnu that is collectively

counted as one of his seven-and-thirty works.

 

There are many notable incidents on record involving Srimad Ananda

Tirtha and it is futile to hope that a short piece like this one can capture

even the essence of his mission correctly. However, in brief, two of them

are the ones where he lifted and displaced a boulder weighing tons that was

obstructing some construction; an inscription ("Ananda tirthena eka-hastena

sthapita sila") made on the boulder at the time attests to the event to this

day. On another occasion, he led some disciples to a spot where he showed

them the long-buried weapons of the Pandavas, including the great mace he

had wielded to telling effect as the mighty Bhimasena.

 

Visual evidence, if one may call it that, of Srimad Ananda Tirtha

being Madhva, the avatara of Vayu, was obtained by Trivikrama Pandita when

the latter had the great fortune to observe the three forms of Vayu worship

simultaneously - Hanuman worshiping Rama, Bhimasena worshiping Krsna and

Ananda Tirtha worshiping Vyasa. On that occasion Trivikrama Pandita composed

the Hari-Vayu Stuti, also called just Vayu Stuti ("srimadvisnvanghrinistha

atiguna gurutama srimadanandatirtha..."). Madhva himself validated the Vayu

Stuti by adding the mangalacarana slokas called Narasimha-nakha stuti

("pantvasman puruhuta vairi balavan...") to be chanted in the beginning and

at the end of Vayu Stuti. This very short work of just two slokas is counted

as one of his thirty-seven granthas.

 

Srimad Ananda Tirtha disappeared from amidst an audience after

giving a lecture on the Aitareya Upanisad on the ninth day of the sukla

paksa in the month of Magha in 1319 and now is permanently in Badarikasrama

where he serves his master Badarayana in person.