A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.25

c20.25

The philosophic debate which, as against Śankara, laid increasing stress upon the reality of the world and the soul in distinction from Brahman ended in complete pluralism in the system of Madhva. Born shortly before 1200 in a Brahmin family at Kalyānapura in the Udipi taluk of South Kanara district, some forty miles west of Śringeri, he became a sanyāsi while he was still quite young and, like Rāmānuja, had his early training in the system of Śankara. But before his training was over, he broke away from that system and evolved his own based mainly on the *Bhāgavata-purāṇa*. Tradition credits him with a great capacity for physical endurance. A debate at Trivandrum with an *ācārya* of Śringeri ended in his discomfiture and he was robbed of his library and subjected to much annoyance and persecution. He toured Northern India where he had encounters with robbers, wild beasts and hostile chieftains in the course of his journeys. After resting for a while in Hardwar he retreated into the Himalayas for communion with Vyāsa and published his commentary on *Vedāntasūtras* on his return. Back at Udipi again, he built a temple of Krishna and spent his time preaching, converting, and defeating ‘illusionists’. After a ministry of nearly eighty years, and at the age of ninety-six, he disappeared as he sat teaching and was seen no more. He claimed to be an incarnation of Vāyu, the Wind-god. He was a prolific writer who disdained fine-spun arguments and found support for his teachings mainly from the Purāṇas and other later literature. He taught that the Universe is ruled by God as two persons—Vishnu and Lakshmi—and that the souls in the world are eternally distinct from Him. He recognized different orders of souls and consigned some of them to eternal damnation, which has led some modern critics to hold that ‘it is impossible not to see traces of Christian influence’ in his teaching. The centre of his religion is *bhakti* to Krishna as taught in the *Bhāgavata*, Rādhā having no place in it; but all other *avatārs* are revered, Śiva is worshipped, and ‘the five gods’ (*Pañcāyatana*) are recognized.