The Child Born Outside the House
Vadiraja Tirtha, whose dates the tradition gives as 1480 to 1600, is one of the best loved figures in Karnataka, and his legacy is unusually mixed: a Sanskrit epic, an administrative reform, a Kannada wedding song, and a sweet.
Where he came from
Huvinakere, near Kumbashi, in Kundapura taluk, coastal Karnataka.
Born Bhuvaraha, and the accounts of his birth are worth telling because of what they say about the arrangement.
The vow
His parents were childless and had gone to Vagisha Tirtha, head of the matha, and the arrangement was the same one this batch has already met in the Vyasatirtha entry: a child would be given to the institution.
And the accounts say the parents tried to get out of it.
The terms as they understood them applied to a child born in the house, so when the time came they arranged for the birth to happen outside it, in a cattle shed or a field depending on the version.
And the sannyasi came anyway, and the child was given.
How this app treats that
As it treated the same practice in the Vyasatirtha entry, and it should be said again because this is the second instance in one batch.
Children promised to institutions before birth do not consent to the arrangement.
And the tradition's own accounts show the parents trying to avoid it, which tells you that the people involved understood what it cost, and that the vow was binding in a way they could not simply set aside.
The tradition takes from these stories that the child was destined for it. This app notes instead that in both cases the child in question turned out to be one of the great figures of his century, that this is the reason the story is remembered, and that the very large number of children given to institutions who did not turn out that way are not in anybody's records.
And it is still happening in some communities, and a family under pressure to give a child to any institution, religious or otherwise, is a family that should feel free to say no.
The Paryaya reform
His most concrete legacy and it governs Udupi to this day.
What Udupi is: the Krishna temple established by Madhvacharya, with the ashta mathas, eight monastic houses, each with its own line of pontiffs, and the worship of the deity rotates between them.
Before Vadiraja the rotation was every two months.
Which sounds tidy and was not. A two month term means a pontiff barely arrives before he is leaving, there is no time to undertake anything, the administration is in permanent handover, and the incentive to maintain rather than extract is weak.
Vadiraja changed it to two years.
And that is the Paryaya system, and it still runs: every two years, in January, the Paryaya ceremony at Udupi transfers the worship to the next matha in the cycle, and it is one of the major religious events in Karnataka.
Which is worth noting as a kind of achievement
Most of the people in this series are remembered for texts or for stories.
Vadiraja is remembered for an administrative change to a rota, made five hundred years ago, which is still the operating procedure of a functioning institution.
And that is a real thing to have done. Institutions run on arrangements of exactly this kind, and somebody who improves one has done more concrete good than most people who write about virtue.
Sode
He established the matha at Sode, also Sonda, in Sirsi taluk, Uttara Kannada, in the Western Ghats.
And he built the Trivikrama temple there, and the Dhavalagangaa tank, and his brindavana is at Sode.
It is a quiet place in forested hill country, a long way from the coast, and it is one of the more atmospheric of the Madhva sites.
Hayagriva
The story everybody in Karnataka knows.
Who Hayagriva is
A form of Vishnu with the head of a horse, and the deity of learning, of recovered knowledge and of the Vedas.
The account: the Vedas were stolen and had to be recovered, and Vishnu took this form to do it. Which is why he is invoked at the start of study, and why students, scholars and anybody about to sit an examination address him.
And he was Vadiraja's ishta devata.
The story
Vadiraja made a sweet every day.
A preparation of chana dal and jaggery, cooked together, with ghee and coconut and cardamom, and it is a real dish that is still made.
And he put the plate on his head.
And a white horse came and ate it from there, standing with its forefeet on his shoulders, and that is the image: the man standing still with the plate balanced on his head and the horse eating over him.
Why the detail is good
Because of the physical position.
He cannot see it. The plate is on his head, the horse is behind and above him, and the entire transaction happens where he has no view of it. He knows it is happening because of the weight and the movement and nothing else.
And he has to stand still.
Which is a description of a specific kind of practice and the tradition uses it that way: you do the work, you put it where it can be taken, and you do not get to watch.
The sweet
It is called hayagriva, or hayagreeva maddi, and it is made in Karnataka kitchens now, at festivals and on ordinary days, and it is very good.
And the fact that a dish is named after the deity in a story about a man feeding him is one of the more charming ways a tradition preserves something.
Nobody has to believe anything about the horse to make it, and a great many people make it who have never heard the story, and the name carries it anyway.
Bhutaraja
The other Sode tradition, and it should be reported as tradition.
A being called Bhutaraja is held to serve at Sode, associated with Vadiraja, and there is a continuing practice of offerings connected with him.
Which this app reports and does not adjudicate. Local guardian figures of this kind are found across India, at temples, at village boundaries and in forests, they occupy a real place in the practice of the people who keep them, and describing them accurately is different from making claims about them.
And the standing caution applies as everywhere: anybody charging you money to deal with a spirit, a guardian, a possession or an affliction is selling something. If somebody in your family is behaving in a way that frightens you, that is a matter for a doctor. Tele MANAS 14416.
On the hundred and twenty years
The tradition gives his dates as 1480 to 1600.
Which would make him a hundred and twenty.
The oldest verified human lifespan on record is around a hundred and twenty two, so it is not physically impossible, and it is also the case that ages in this literature are frequently stylised, that a hundred and twenty is a conventional number for a complete life in Indian sources, and that this app is not going to insist on the figure.
What the number is doing is marking him as somebody whose life spanned the tradition rather than a section of it.
And on the manner of his end
The tradition says he entered his brindavana alive at Sode.
This app reports that and adds one thing, firmly.
Nobody should attempt anything of the kind, and nobody should encourage anybody to.
Claims about entering samadhi alive are made about a number of figures across Indian traditions, they cannot be verified, and in the present they are occasionally used to justify things that get people killed: fasting to death, live burial, being sealed in a chamber.
People have died in India in recent decades in circumstances of this kind, and the responsible thing for any app writing about these traditions is to say so.
If somebody is proposing anything like this, to themselves or to another person, that is an emergency. Police 112. Tele MANAS 14416.
The Books, and the Song at Weddings
In Sanskrit
Yuktimallika, his principal philosophical work, in five sections called saurabhas, fragrances: Guna, Suddhi, Bheda, Vishesha and Purna.
It is a defence of Dvaita, and it sits in the same argumentative line as the Nyayamrita of the previous entry, which was written by his older contemporary.
Rukminisha Vijaya, a mahakavya in nineteen sargas on the life of Krishna.
And this is the one to read.
It is a full length classical Sanskrit epic, written to the standards of the courtly tradition, on Krishna from birth to the marriage with Rukmini, and it is widely regarded as one of the finest Sanskrit poems of the later period.
Which is worth stating plainly: the idea that Sanskrit literature stops being good after the classical period is a widely held view and it is wrong, and the Rukminisha Vijaya is one of the pieces of evidence.
Tirtha Prabandha, and this one is unusual.
A poetic travelogue.
Vadiraja travelled across India on pilgrimage, and the Tirtha Prabandha describes the places he went: the temples, the rivers, the deities, the landscape and the journeys between them, in verse, organised by direction.
A sixteenth century Indian travel poem by somebody who actually made the journey, and there is not much else of the kind.
And his other Sanskrit works: Sarasa Bharati Vilasa, Nyaya Ratnavali, Gurvarthadipika, and commentaries.
In Kannada
And this is where he is still in daily use.
Lakshmi Shobhane.
A long Kannada poem on the marriage of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and it is sung at weddings in Karnataka to this day.
Which makes it one of the very few compositions in this entire series that a reader is likely to have heard without knowing what it was.
If you have attended a wedding in a Kannada speaking household, there is a reasonable chance somebody sang this, or part of it, and it was written by a sixteenth century Madhva pontiff who also wrote a technical defence of ontological pluralism.
Vaikuntha Varnane, a description of the divine realm.
And devaranamas under the ankita Hayavadana, the horse faced one, which is Hayagriva.
Which is the pattern this batch has been documenting
Sanskrit philosophy and Kannada song from the same person, without any sense of a contradiction.
Sripadaraja established it, Vyasatirtha worked in both, and Vadiraja wrote a Sanskrit epic, a technical treatise, a travel poem and a wedding song.
And the wedding song is the one that outlasted the rest in ordinary life.
Where to go
- Sode, also Sonda, Sirsi taluk, Uttara Kannada, in the Western Ghats: the matha, the Trivikrama temple, the Dhavalagangaa tank and his brindavana
- Udupi, for the Krishna temple and the ashta mathas, and the Paryaya in January every two years
- Huvinakere, near Kumbashi, Kundapura taluk, where he was born
- Navavrindavana and Hampi, for the previous entry
A daily practice from this entry
- Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya, or Hayagriva invoked before study, which is what he is for
- Lakshmi Shobhane, if there is a wedding
- Hayagreeva maddi, made once. Chana dal, jaggery, ghee, coconut, cardamom. It is a genuinely good sweet and the recipe is everywhere
- And the practice the horse story describes: do the work, put it where it can be taken, and do not stand there waiting to see it received
The Short Version
Who: Vadiraja Tirtha, whose dates the tradition gives as 1480 to 1600, one of the best loved figures in Karnataka, with an unusually mixed legacy: a Sanskrit epic, an administrative reform, a Kannada wedding song and a sweet. Born Bhuvaraha at Huvinakere near Kumbashi in Kundapura taluk, coastal Karnataka.
The vow: his childless parents had promised a child to Vagisha Tirtha's matha, and the accounts say they tried to get out of it, arranging for the birth to happen outside the house since the terms as they understood them applied to a child born in it. The sannyasi came anyway. This app notes, as it did in the Vyasatirtha entry, that children promised to institutions before birth do not consent to the arrangement, that the parents' attempt to avoid it shows they understood what it cost, and that the very large number of children given to institutions who did not become great figures are in nobody's records.
The Paryaya reform: at Udupi the eight ashta mathas rotate the worship of Krishna between them, and before Vadiraja the rotation was every two months, which meant a pontiff barely arrived before leaving, there was no time to undertake anything, and the administration was in permanent handover. He changed it to two years. That is the Paryaya system, still running, with the ceremony every two years in January transferring worship to the next matha, one of the major religious events in Karnataka. Most people in this series are remembered for texts or stories; Vadiraja is remembered for an administrative change to a rota that is still the operating procedure of a functioning institution five hundred years later.
Hayagriva: the horse headed form of Vishnu, deity of learning and of the recovered Vedas, invoked at the start of study, and Vadiraja's ishta devata. He made a sweet of chana dal and jaggery daily, put the plate on his head, and a white horse came and ate from there with its forefeet on his shoulders. The detail that makes it good is the physical position: the plate is on his head, the horse is behind and above him, he cannot see any of it and knows it is happening only by the weight and the movement, and he has to stand still. The sweet is called hayagriva or hayagreeva maddi and is still made in Karnataka kitchens.
On the long life and the end: the traditional dates would make him a hundred and twenty, which is not physically impossible since the oldest verified lifespan is around a hundred and twenty two, but ages in this literature are frequently stylised. The tradition says he entered his brindavana alive at Sode, and this app adds firmly that nobody should attempt anything of the kind and nobody should encourage anybody to, since claims of this sort are occasionally used in the present to justify fasting to death, live burial or being sealed in a chamber, and people have died in India in recent decades in such circumstances.
His works: the Yuktimallika, his philosophical defence of Dvaita in five saurabhas; the Rukminisha Vijaya, a full length classical Sanskrit epic in nineteen sargas on Krishna, widely regarded as one of the finest Sanskrit poems of the later period; the Tirtha Prabandha, a poetic travelogue of his actual pilgrimage across India, of which there is not much else of the kind; and in Kannada the Lakshmi Shobhane, on the marriage of Vishnu and Lakshmi, which is sung at weddings in Karnataka to this day.
Common Questions From Devotees
Who was Vadiraja Tirtha?+
A Madhva pontiff whose dates the tradition gives as 1480 to 1600, born Bhuvaraha at Huvinakere near Kumbashi in coastal Karnataka, and one of the best loved figures in that state. He established the matha at Sode in Uttara Kannada, where his brindavana is, reformed the Udupi rotation into the Paryaya system still in use, wrote the Sanskrit epic Rukminisha Vijaya and the philosophical Yuktimallika, and composed the Kannada Lakshmi Shobhane which is sung at Karnataka weddings to this day. His ishta devata was Hayagriva.
What is the Paryaya at Udupi?+
The system by which the eight ashta mathas of Udupi rotate the worship of the Krishna deity between them, each taking a two year term. Before Vadiraja Tirtha the rotation was every two months, which sounds tidy and was not: a two month term means a pontiff barely arrives before he is leaving, there is no time to undertake anything, the administration is in permanent handover, and the incentive to maintain rather than extract is weak. Vadiraja changed it to two years, and the Paryaya ceremony every two years in January, transferring worship to the next matha in the cycle, is one of the major religious events in Karnataka. It is a real achievement of a kind rarely recorded: an administrative change to a rota, made five hundred years ago, still the operating procedure of a functioning institution.
What is the story of Vadiraja and the white horse?+
Hayagriva, the horse headed form of Vishnu and the deity of learning and of the recovered Vedas, was Vadiraja's ishta devata. He made a sweet of chana dal and jaggery every day, put the plate on his head, and a white horse came and ate it from there, standing with its forefeet on his shoulders. The detail that makes the story good is the physical position: the plate is on his head and the horse is behind and above him, so the entire transaction happens where he has no view of it and he knows it is happening only by the weight and the movement, and he has to stand still. The tradition uses it as a description of a kind of practice: you do the work, you put it where it can be taken, and you do not get to watch. The sweet is called hayagriva or hayagreeva maddi and is still made in Karnataka kitchens.
Did Vadiraja Tirtha really live for a hundred and twenty years?+
The tradition gives his dates as 1480 to 1600, which would make him a hundred and twenty. The oldest verified human lifespan on record is around a hundred and twenty two, so it is not physically impossible, and it is also the case that ages in this literature are frequently stylised and that a hundred and twenty is a conventional number for a complete life in Indian sources. This app is not going to insist on the figure either way. What the number is doing is marking him as somebody whose life spanned the tradition rather than a section of it.
What does this app say about entering samadhi alive?+
The tradition says Vadiraja entered his brindavana alive at Sode, and this app reports that and adds one thing firmly: nobody should attempt anything of the kind, and nobody should encourage anybody to. Claims about entering samadhi alive are made about a number of figures across Indian traditions, they cannot be verified, and in the present they are occasionally used to justify things that get people killed, including fasting to death, live burial and being sealed in a chamber. People have died in India in recent decades in circumstances of this kind, and the responsible thing for any app writing about these traditions is to say so. If somebody is proposing anything like this, to themselves or to another person, that is an emergency: police 112, Tele MANAS 14416.
What is the Lakshmi Shobhane?+
A long Kannada poem by Vadiraja Tirtha on the marriage of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and it is sung at weddings in Karnataka to this day, which makes it one of the very few compositions in this whole series that a reader is likely to have heard without knowing what it was. If you have attended a wedding in a Kannada speaking household there is a reasonable chance somebody sang this or part of it, and it was written by a sixteenth century Madhva pontiff who also wrote a technical defence of ontological pluralism, a full length Sanskrit epic and a poetic travelogue of his pilgrimage across India.
About the author
Pandit Ravindra Sharma · Vedic Rituals & Bhakti, 22+ years
Pandit Ravindra is the Vandnaa editorial team's resident specialist on aarti, chalisa, and daily devotion. He has performed home and temple pujas across Varanasi and Delhi for over two decades and contributes the bhakti-focused articles on this site.
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