Sripadaraja

Sripadaraya, born in 1404, also known as Lakshminarayana Tirtha, was born in Abburu in Chennapattana Taluk (near modern Bengaluru) in Indian state of Karnataka. It is also believed that he was the incarnation of dhruva. His contribution to the philosophy of Dvaita, Haridasa Sahitya, and the then existing social and political circumstances in Vijayanagar Empire were considerable. He was the guru of Sri Vyasatirtha (who was the guru of Purandara Dasa and Kanakadasa). Sripadaraya was the Rajaguru of the Vijayanagara kings of that time.

Sainthood and Contributions of Sripadaraya
Lakshminarayana, when he was a child, he played around with his friends, a pontiff named Svarnavarna Tirtha happened to come across them and asked them how far the village Abbur was. In return Lakshminarayana gave him a very clear and clever answer which was; "Look at the setting sun, and look at us playing here. Now you guess how far Abburu is!" By such a quick answer the pontiff was taken aback, but the meaning was not entirely lost to him. What exactly the clever boy meant was "even though the sun is so close to setting, we are still playing. We can reach our homes quickly before it gets too dark". The pontiff then proceeded to make the boy his pupil and took him into sainthood.

The name Sripadaraya was given to him by Sri Raghunatha tirtha of Uttaradi matha. Sripadaraja earned great fame by removing the ruling Vijayanagara King`s Brahmahatya dosha (the sin of killing Brahmins), which is considered to be the most heinous of all sins. Sripadaraya was a great scholar and poet. He was also known for singing devaranama or devotional songs in Kannada language with bhakti.

Some of his important compositions were
* Bhramaragita
* Venugita
* Gopigita
* Madhvanama

Some of his famous Devaranama are
* Ne ittahange iruveno hariye...
* Kangalidyathako kaveri rangana nodada...
* Bhushanake Bhushana...

The brindavana is in Narasimha Theertha, Mulbagal in Kolar District. His disciple Vyasatirtha also composed songs in praise of his master.

Sripadaraya died in the year 1502.

This article is a stub. You can enrich by adding more information to it. Send your Write Up to content@indianetzone.com