Vidyāraṇya
1296 CE · Śṛṅgeri (Sringeri)
c. 1296–1391 CE (traditional); Jagadguru of Sringeri c. 1380–1386 CE
Vidyāraṇya was the monastic name of Mādhava, a towering Advaita scholar of 14th-century South India who became Jagadguru of the Śṛṅgeri Śāradā Pīṭha. He authored the Pañcadaśī (a classic Advaita manual), the Jīvanmukti-viveka, and is traditionally connected to the Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha (a survey of philosophical systems) and to the great Vedic commentarial project usually credited to his brother Sāyaṇa. Tradition holds that he served as preceptor and guiding force behind the brothers Harihara and Bukka in founding the Vijayanagara Empire (c. 1336), giving the new capital its sacred legitimacy. Modern historians, however, note that the earliest Vijayanagara inscriptions do not mention this role, so his foundational involvement is debated even as his later position at Sringeri and his literary output are secure. His traditional dates are c. 1296–1391.
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Śṛṅgeri (Sringeri)
What they did here
Center of his life and scholarship; he became Jagadguru of the Śṛṅgeri Śāradā Pīṭham (c. 1380–1386) and composed his Advaita works in its orbit.
About Śṛṅgeri (Sringeri)
Śṛṅgeri (Sringeri) is a temple town on the Tuṅgabhadrā (Tunga) River in the Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka, south-west India. It is traditionally held to be the site of the first of the maṭhas founded by Ādi Śaṅkara, and was later led by Vidyāraṇya, the 14th-century Advaita scholar and Sringeri pontiff.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Vidyāraṇya’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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Works
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