माद्यदद्वैत्यन्धकारप्रद्योतनमहर्निशम्।
विद्याधिराजं स्वगुरुं ध्यायामि करुणाकरम्॥
|| mAdyadadvaityandhakArapradyotanamaharnisham .
vidyAdhirAjaM svaguruM dhyAyAmi karuNAkaram ||
Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha, the immediate disciple and successor of Shri JayaTeertha, who occupied the throne of Vedanta Samrajya of the Uttaradi Matha. His initial name was Krishna Bhat before he was initiated to Sanya by Shri JayaTeertha.
Once when he went on tour to northern India he came to River Bhima. He thought of going to Kashi for a holy dip in river Ganges. The Goddess Ganga told him in a dream that he need not travel all the way to Ganges and that she would appear to him in the river Bhima itself the very next day. The Godddess Ganges apeared in the Bhima river and the Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha offered pooja to the goddess and had a holy dip in Bhima along with his disciples. He toured all over India for the propagation of the Dwaita vedanta.
It was during the time of Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha that the first bifurcation of the Madhava Matha took place. According to a tradition Shri Vidyadhiraja Tirtharu ordained Shri Rajendra Teertha, one of his disciples, to succeed him to the pontifical throne when he was ill. But when he got well soon after, he did not install him to the Vedanta samrajya of the Matha. Shri Rajendra Teertha, therefore, went on travel to propagate the philosophy of the Madhva. A little later Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha fell ill again and felt that the end was near, when Shri Rajendra Teertha was on tour. He sent his disciple to locate Shri Rajendra Teertha before he passed away unfortunately he could not be located early enough. In this critical juncture and in order to avoid the consequence of the Vedanta Samrajya of the Uttaradi Matha being without a successor, Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha was forced to ordain another disciple Shri Kavindra Tirtha as the successor of Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha and handed over the entire samsthana and all the properties of the Matha to him. This included all the idols which were handed over to Shri Padmanabha Teertha by Shri Madhwacharya and subsequently were acquired by the saints of Uttaradi Matha, the pontificate and the entire Samsthana. There was no division of these assets. The Uttaradi Matha thus continued to be the Moola Samsthana of Shri Madhwacharya, presided by Shri Kavindra Teertha.
|| Shri Digvijay Rama Vijayate || || Shri Krishnarpnamastu ||
The inscription of Madras presidency Volume 2 of Udipi taluk No. 241 narrates that the Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha received a gift of 200 cents of land from Devaraja Maharaya for the Uttaradi Matha. He composed three major works - 1 'Chandogya Bhashya Tika' 2 'Gita Vritti' 3 'Vishnu Sahasranama Bhashya' Of these works the 'Vishnu Sahasranama Bhashya' is the most important one. Vishnu Sahasranama occupies a high place in Madhva thought and Shri Vidyadhiraja was the earliest commentator on it. The opening verse of the commentary is an invocation to Lord Vishnu, Vyasa and Madhva. The substance and significance of the thousand names of the Lord are well brought out by the author. According to Madhva, each of the thousand names offered innumerable interpretations. However, Shri Vidyadhiraja Teertha deals only with the etymology of the names and gives no importance to the grammar involved.
