Vidyaranya

For Madhvacharya, the proponent of Dvaita philosophy, see Madhvacharya.

Sri Vidyaranya Mahaswamiji
Title	Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham
Personal
Nationality	Vijayanagara empire
Senior posting
Period in office	1380–1386
Predecessor	Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha
Successor	Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati I

Vidyāraṇya, also known as Madhavacharya or Mādhava Vidyāranya, is variously known as a kingmaker, patron saint and high priest to Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, the founders of the Vijayanagara Empire. He was the 12th Jagadguru of the Śringeri Śarada Pītham from 1380-6. He was born to Māyaṇācārya and Śrīmatīdevī in Pampakṣetra (modern-day Hampi) in 1268 CE. Another account has it that he was born in Ekasila Nagari (modern Warangal).

Vidyāraṇya helped the brothers establish the empire sometime in 1336. He later served as a mentor and guide to three generations of kings who ruled over the Vijayanagara Empire. Vijayanagara (Hampi), the capital of the empire, had a temple dedicated to Mādhavācārya.

Vidyāraṇya is the author of the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, a compendium of different philosophical schools of Hindu philosophy and Pañcadaśī, an important text for Advaita Vedanta.

As Vidyaranya

Life

Vidyaranya was born around 1300 A.D. in Shalivahan (शालिवाहन) South India. Madhava Madhavacharya, Madhavamantri, Madhavamataya were the names which Vidyaranya was known before his turning into recluse.

His father was Mayana (मायण) and Mother Srimati (श्रीमती), two brothers Sayana (सायण), and Bhogantha (भोगनाथ). He had two Gurus Sarvagyvishnu (सर्वज्ञविष्णु) and Bhartiteerth (भारतीतीर्थ). He established Vijayanagar Empire in 1335 AD with the help of Hukkayaray and Bukkaray. He was also Prime Minister of the Vijayanagar empire. Vidyaranya, was also the spiritual head of Sringeri Math in 1377 A.D to 1386 A.D. He died in 1391 AD.

Vidyaranya was an exponent of the Advaita school of philosophy in Hinduism. He is said to be the brother of Sāyaṇācārya who wrote a commentary on the four Vedas. His younger brother, Shyapa, was associated with him in the administration and was a famous commentator on the Rigveda. Shyapa's commentaries were influenced by and dedicated to Mādhava.

Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha

Vidyaranya's most famous works are Pārāśara-Mādhavīya and the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha "Compendium of school of philosophies", a compendium of all the known Indian schools of philosophy. To quote Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha "sketches sixteen systems of thought so as to exhibit a gradually ascending series, culminating in the Advaita Vedanta (or non-dualism)." The sixteen systems of philosophy expounded by him are:

1. Cārvāka
2. Buddhism
3. Arhata or Jainism
4. Purna-Prajña
5. Nakulisa-Paśupata
6. Shaivism
7. Pratyabhijña (Kashmir Shaivism)
8. Raseśvara
9. Vaisheshika or Aulukya
10. Akshapada or Nyaya
11. Jaimini
12. Pāṇiniya
13. Samkhya
14. Patanjala or Yoga
15. Vedanta or Adi Shankara

The Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha itself doesn’t contain the 16th chapter (Advaita Vedanta, or the system of Adi Shankara), the absence of which is explained by a paragraph at the end of the 15th chapter, (the Patanjali-Darsana). It says: “The system of Sankara, which comes next in succession, and which is the crest-gem of all systems, has been explained by us elsewhere, it is therefore left untouched here”.

Vidyaranya tries to refute, chapter by chapter, the other systems of thought prominent in his day. Other than Buddhist and Jaina philosophies, Vidyaranya draws quotes directly from the works of their founders or leading exponents and it also has to be added that in this work, with remarkable mental detachment, he places himself in the position of an adherent of sixteen distinct philosophical systems.

Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha is one of the few available sources of information about lokayata, the materialist system of philosophy in ancient India. In the very first chapter, "The Cārvāka System", he critiques the arguments of lokayatikas. While doing so he quotes extensively from Cārvāka works. It is possible that some of these arguments put forward as the lokayata point of view may be a mere caricature of lokayata philosophy. Yet in the absence of any original work of lokayatikas, it is one of the very few sources of information available today on materialist philosophy in ancient India.

Pañcadaśī

Vidyaranya's Pañcadaśī is a standard text on the philosophy of the Advaita Vedanta tradition. It consists of fifteen chapters which are divided into three sections of five chapters each, which are designated as Viveka(Discrimination), Dipa(Illumination) and Ananda(Bliss). The text elucidates many Vedantic concepts such as, the five sheaths of an individuality, the relation between Isvara(God), Jagat(world) and Jiva(individual), the indistinguishability of cause and effect etc.

Madhaviya Shankara Vijaya

Vidyaranya wrote Madhavia Shankara Vijaya also known as Samkshepa-Sankara-Vijaya. The book is about life and achievements of Shankara BhagavatPada (Adi Sankara).

Vidyaranya also wrote a commentary on the Mimamsa Sutras. He attained Siddhi after a six year stint as an acharya of the monastery of Sringeri.

Founding of Vijayanagara empire

According to one narrative, Harihara Raya I and Bukka Raya I were two brothers in the service of the Kampili chief. After Kampili fell to the Muslim invasion, they were taken to Delhi and converted to Islam. They were sent back to Kampili as the Delhi Sultan's vassals. After gaining power in the region, they approached Vidyaranya, who converted them back to the Hindu faith. The historical authenticity of this narrative is doubtful. The contemporary documents, including the inscriptions issued by the earliest rulers of Vijayanagara, do not mention this account. The contemporary Muslim records refer to Harihara (as "Harip" or "Haryab"), but do not mention anything about his conversion to Islam, although they contain details of other converts from Deccan. The first works to mention this narrative were written over 200 years after the establishment of Vijayanagara.

A local legend goes like this: Once, during a hunt, Harihara saw a big rabbit and sent his hunting dog after it. However, the rabbit bit the dog and escaped. While returning from the hunt, Harihara saw a holy man, and narrated the strange incident to him. The holy man was Vidyaranya. The two men went to the place where the rabbit had escaped. Vidyaranya told him that the place was sacred, and advised him to establish the capital of his new kingdom there.

See also

• Sringeri Sharada Peetham
• Advaita Vedanta
• Vijayanagara Empire

References

• Indian Philosophy - a Popular Introduction: Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, People's Publishing House, New Delhi, 7th edition 1993
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

External links

• Biography at freeindia.org
• Works by Madhava Acharya at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Vidyaranya at Internet Archive
• Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha by Madhavacharya (Vidyaranya Swami) - tr by E.B.Cowell (1882) at archive.org
• Vivarana Prameya Sangrah by Vidyaranya Swami (Sanskrit Text with Hindi Translation) at archive.org
• Panchadasi by Vidyaranya Swami, with Hindi translation at archive.org
• Panchadasi by Vidyaranya Swami, with English translation at archive.org
• Taittiriyaka-Vidyaprakash of Vidyaranya at archive.org
• Shankara Digvijaya [1] [2] at archive.org
• Sankara-Dig-Vijaya by Madhava-Vidyaranya translated to English by Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai-600 004, India

Preceded by Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha

Jagadguru of Sringeri Sharada Peetham 1380–1386

Succeeded by Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati I