Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu

Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu, the immediate disciple and successor of Sri Jaya Theertharu, who occupied the throne of Vedanta Samrajya of the Uttaradi Matha. His initial name was Krishna Bhat before he was initiated to Sanyas by Sri Jaya Theertharu.

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 Sri Vidyadhi Raja Theertharu 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 Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu that the first bifurcation of the Madhava Matha took place. According to a tradition Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu ordained Sri Rajendra Theertharu, 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. Sri Rajendra Theertharu, therefore, went on travel to propagate the philosophy of the Madhva.

A little later Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu fell ill again and felt that the end was near, when Sri Rajendra Theertharu was on tour. He sent his disciple to locate Sri Rajendra Theertharu 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 with out a successor, Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu was forced to ordain another disciple Sri Kavindra Theertharu as the successor of Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu 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 Sri Padmanabha Theertharu by Sri Madhvacharyaru 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 Sri Madhvacharyaru, presided by Sri Kavindra Theertharu.

He composed three major works -

1 'Chandogya Bhashya Teeka'

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 Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu was the earliest commentator on it. The opening verse of the commentary is an invocation to Lord Vishnu, Vyasa Maharshi and Sriman Madhvacharyaru. 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, Sri Vidyadhiraja Theertharu deals only with the etymology of the names and gives no importance to the grammar involved.