page_title: Vyasatirtha
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Vyasatirtha / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Mahabharata ([n.d.]) Author: Ramanarayanadatta astri Volume: 6 Publisher: [Gorakhpur Geeta Press] Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT Language: Hindi Call number: AAO-3248 Digitizing sponsor: University of Toronto Book contributor: Robarts - University of Toronto Collection: robarts; toronto Full catalog record: MARCXML [Open Library icon]This book has an editable web page on Open Library.
context_page_description: Vyāsatīrtha, also called Vyasaraja or Chandrikacharya, was a Hindu philosopher, scholar and poet belonging to the Dvaita order of Vedanta. As the patron saint of the 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 amplified spread of Dvaita across the subcontinent. 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 significant stir in the Advaita community across the country requiring a rebuttal by Madhusudhana Saraswati through his text, Advaitasiddhi.
  Born into a Brahmin family as Yatiraja, Bramhanya Tirtha, the pontiff of the matha at Abbur, assumed guardianship over him and oversaw his education.
context_section_description: Vyasatirtha was born Yatiraja into a Deshastha 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 genuinely 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 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.
caption: A vision of Vishnu urged Vyasatirtha to return to the monastery and accept the monastic order.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "901", "Image ImageLength": "1865", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2013:12:24 08:56:16", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image ExifOffset": "249", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1746", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2374", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "392", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1865", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:12:24 08:53:45", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "901", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "7c9e9f05f9b1c6fc500bc8a75940dca9"}