A town to honour a Madhwa saint

He is perhaps the only saint in the Madhwa lineage in whose honour a town has been named.

This saint is a very well known yati of the Uttaradhi Matha and he ruled over the Uttaradhi Matha from 1726 to 1737. He was the 23^rd head of the Uttaradhi Matha. He also taught Nyaya Sudha Patha to a poor Brahmin youth sitting in the Brindavana.

His name is Satyavijaya Theertha and a town named in his honor, Satyavijaya Nagar exists even today.

The town of Satyavijaya Nagar is in Arani in Tiruvvanamali taluk of Tamil Nadu. The Brindavana of this seer exists on the banks of Kamandala Naga river in this town.

Satyavijaya Theertha hailed from the Pandurangi family. His Poorvashrama name was Balacharya Pandurangi. When Balacharya was in Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu, the then peethadipathi of the Uttaradhi Matha, Satyapoorna Theertha came there.

He was a popular priest in Mannargudi, adept in performing Putrakameshti Yagna.

Soon, Satyapoorna Theertha felt that the time had come for him to leave the mortal world. He sent word for Satyapriya Theertha to come over and take the reigns of the Matha. By then, Satyapoorna Theertha had already declared Satyapriya Theertha as his successor.

However, Satyapriya Theertha was on Sanchara in north India and he could not be reached. Not knowing what to do, Satyapoorna Theertha decided to give sanyasa to another disciple-Balacharya. He anointed Satyavijaya Theertha as the new successor of the Uttaradhi Matha. He also requested Satyavijaya Theertha to hand over the reigns of the Matha once Satyapriya Theertha came back from his Sanchara.  

Satyavijaya Theertha agreed to do so and Satyapoorna Theertha passed away. He entered brindavana in Sangli, which today is in Maharashtra.

All this while, the officials of the Matha and Satyavijaya Theertha were waiting for the return of Satyapriya Theertha. He, however, did not come.

Satyavijaya Thertha decided to go on Sanchara. During his Sanchara, he came to Arani which was under the jagir of Srinivasa Rao Saheb, a Maratha Brahmin. The jagir of Arni had been gifted to Srinivasa’s ancestor Vedoji Bhaskar Pant by Shahaji, father of Chatrapati Shivaji.

Srinivasa Rao welcomed Satyavijaya Theertha and made him comfortable. One day, while both of them were walking, they saw a hooded cobra. Srinivasa Rao asked the seer the significance of the cobra and he was told that a war was about to break out between the Nawab of Arcot and Hyder Ali.

The seer said the cobra was giving an indication to Srinivasa Rao to shift his palace as the impending war was likely to impact Arani too.

Sometime later, Satyavijaya Theertha felt that his end was near.   

He called Srinivasa Rao and told him that the pall bearers should carry his body to the place where they could not continue any further. He indicated that the weight of his body would become too much for the pall bearers and they would have to stop. “Construct my Brindavan at this place”, he said.   

He then told Srinivasa Rao that he would have to hand over the Matha Danda (holy stick) to Satyapriya Theertha. He said he would make an inventory of all the articles and give a copy to Srinivasa Rao. He asked Srinivasa Rao to hand over the copy to Satyapriya Theertha.

He also buried the pooja box and asked Srinivasa Rao to request Satyapriya Theertah to unearth the pooja box.

Satyavijaya Theertha passed away on Chaitra Krishna Ekadashi. Srinivasa Rao found that the pall bearers halted at the very spot where he and Satyavijaya Theertha had seen the cobra.

Srinivasa Rao then constructed a Brindavana at that very spot.  He also shifted his palace nearby. Even today, the ruins of the Jagardir’s  palace is near the Brindavana of Satyavijaya Theertha.

Srinivasa Rao then renamed the place as Satyavijaya Nagar in memory of Satyavijaya Theertha.

 A few days later, Satyapriya Theertha came to Satyaviijaya Nagar. He received a copy of the inventory of the articles from Srinivasa Rao. Now, the search began for the pooja box.

When it could not be found, Satyapriya Theertha composed a beautiful shloka and requested his preceptor to help him find the pooja box.

He sang

“Bandhustvam Gururista Daiwatamiti

Twatpada pankeruham praptham

Mam paripalayeti satatam

Yache nibadajanli:

Cittam madgunadosha chintanavidhou

Noonam manang maa krutha:

Nanyame gatirasti Satyavijayaswamin Twadangrivina.”

Satyapriya Theertha saw the pooja box after he sang the verse. He took the pooja box but then another problem presented itself. Satyavijaya Theertha had asked Satyapriya Theertah to take the Matha Danda from him. How do you take a Danda from a person sitting within a brindavana.

Besides, Satyavijaya Theerthe was technically not his guru. Absorbed in these thoughts, Satyapriya Theerthye walked to a Hanuman Temple nearby. (This temple is consecrated by Vyasa Theertha).

The moment he entered the Haunman temple, monkeys swarmed around Satyapriya Theertha. Vayu manifested himself rom the iodl and spoke to Satyapriya Theertha.

Vayu told Satyapriya Theertha that Sathyavijaya Theertha was a great soul who had followed his Guru’s instructions to the fullest. Vayu further said Satyavijaya Theertha had entered Brindavana without even appointing a successor and, therefore, he should exchange Danda continue with his sanchara.

Sathyapriya Theertha exchanged the Danda and continued his Sanchara. He entered Brindavana in Manamadurai.

Even after he entered Brindavana, Satyavijaya Theertha has been performing miracles. Once a poor Brahmin youth was thrown out of his house and he made the matha housing  the Brindavana of Satyavijaya Theertha his home.

The youth wanted to learn Nyaya Sudha and he began thinking about it every day.  One night, Satyavijaya Theertha came in his dream. The seer asked him to take a bath in the river and sit in front of his Brindavana with a text of Nyaya Sudha.

The youth did as he was told. A voice came out from the Brindavan and it taught the boy the entire patha of Nyaya Sudha in just two months.

The boy later came to be called as Ranga Wodeyar. Locals told me that even today Ranga Wodeyar, whose Brindavana is next to Satyavijaya Theertha, learns scriptures from Satyavijaya Theerha.

A grateful Ranga Wodeyar built a structure around the Brindavana of Satyavijaya Theertha to help devotes perform Pradakshine. It is called Ranga Mantapa.  

Satyavijaya Theertha is believed to be an amsha of Jamadagni Rishi.

Satyavijaya Nagar is  240 kms from Bangalore. The best route to take is Hosur - Krishnagiri - Arani - Satyavijaya Nagar.

Satyavijaya Nagar is 10 kms from Arani.

Besides the Brindavana of  Satyavijaya Theertha, the matha is home to the moola brindavana of  Ranga Wodeyar and mritika brindavana of  Satyaveera Theertha and Raghavendra Swamy.

The Brindavana of Raghavendra Swamy was consecrated by Satyapramoda Theertha.   

The saint for whom Narasimha opened the door of his temple

All of us have either read or heard about the story of  how the Nawab of Adoni, Sidhi Masud Khan, tested the prowess of Raghavendra Swamy or Rayaru by  placing a plate containing meat before the seer.

Rayaru accepted the offering and sprinkled holy water from the kamandala he was carrying. When the clothe covering the plate was removed, the meat had turned into fruits and flowers.

This incident is recorded in history and it finds mention in many books and songs on Raghavendra Swamy, the bard of Mantralaya.

Similarly, the story of Kanaka Dasa in Udupi and how the idol of Lord Krishna in the Sri Krishna Temple turned is also widely mentioned. The Kanakana Kindi in the temple is as famous as the idol of Krishna.

Several centuries earlier to the period of Raghavendra Swamy and Kanaka Dasa, a renown  Madhwa saint, Akshoba Theertha, had defeated Vidyaranya, the Advaitha scholar and Guru of the founders of Vijayanagar Empire Hakka and Bukka, in a debate on “Tatvam Asi”. After the debate, a pillar of victory had been constructed in Mulabagal.  

All these three incidents have been immortalised. But did you that there was one Madhwa Saint during whose life time all these incidents occurred. The doors of a Narasimha Temple opened on its own when this seer came calling at the temple: the meat, blood  and fish offered to him tuned into holy articles and a Vijaya Stambha was consecrated in his memory after he won a debate over a well-known Adwaitha scholar.

This seer was none other than Satyapriya Theertha, one of the most holy men of his times and the Peetadhipathi of Uttaradhi Matha from 1737 to 1774. He had taken over the reigns of the Matha from Satyapurna Theertha.

An ardent devotee of Moola Rama, he is credited with many miracles. During one of his sanchara, he came across the King of a Muslim kingdom. The King, who had heard about the seer’s miracles, wanted to test him.

The King offered three plates pooja, containing mutton, fish and blood. The seer sprinkled Theertha and Tulasi on the plates and when the clothes covering the plates were removed,  the mutton had transformed into sandalwood, fish into stone and blood into  arathi for Moola Rama.

Even as this was going on, the King began losing his eyesight. Unnerved by the miracle, the King feel at the feet of  the Seer and begged forgiveness.

The seer blessed him and the King regained his eyesight. The King then gave three villages, including Chandanoor, and another land grant of over 100 acres to the Uttaradhi Matha apart from other riches. A copper plate donating the land to the Matha can be seen even today.

He decided to visit Melkote, now in Mandya district. When he came to the Yoga Narasimha Temple, the priests had closed the temple doors and felt for the day. Deeply disappointed, the seer began praising the lord and began singing his glory.

The temple doors opened on its own and the temple bells began ringing on its own. The dumbfounded priests performed mangalarti and left the seer in front of the idol to meditate.     

On a tour of north India, he came across an Adwaitha Pandit and scholar called Ghanshyam in Kashi. This scholar had written more than 100 dramas in Sanskrit and was considered an authority on Advaitha literature and philosophy.

Gnan Shyam Kavi accepted Satyapriya Theertha as his Guru and became his follower. He also wrote a book, Prachanda Raahoodayam, a book in five chapters, in which he has made the seer as the hero of the work. This books discusses the Dwaitha. Adwaitha and other schools of philosophy.

The residents of Kashi and the seer’s devotes installed a tower in Kashi inscribing on it the seer’s glorious deed and the defeat of the Adwaitah scholar. (Here, I would like to draw a parallel to the victory of Akshoba Theertha, one of the four direct disciples of Madhwacharya over Vidyaranya).

He revived a boy who had died of snake bite by sprinkling holy water and reciting mantras.  

When the seer was visiting Rameshwaram along with his disciples, thieves attacked attacked them near Man Madurai (near Madurai) and went ahead with the jewel box, sacred bell and other articles of the matha. As the seer sang and prayed to Hanuman to rescue his master’s articles, a group of monkeys set upon the thieves and set about kicking and biting the thieves.

The thieves rushed back to the seer and gave back the articles. They also begged for forgiveness. The monkeys vanished as suddenly as they came and this place was named as Veera Vanara Madurai. This place exists even today near Madurai.

During his last days, the seer personally felt the presence of Rama after performing the pooje of Moola Rama and pother deities of the Matha. He realised his end was near and entered Brindavanana at Mana Madurai in Shivaganga district, Tamil Nadu, on Chaitra Shuda Traiodashi.

Please visit the Brindavana as it is very unique. By and large, all Brindavanas of Madhwa saints are constructed upon a tortoise or Koorma.

This Brindavana is unique as a Sarpa or spiral snake is on the Koorma. There is a beautiful poem in honour of this seer by one of his successors to the Uttaradhi Matha, Satyadharma Theertha.

Satyapriya Theertha has written several works, including commentaries on Upanishads.