Sri Brahmanya Tirtha's Samadhi-vrindavna

Sripad Brahmanya Tirtha.


He was the third descendant from Sripad Rajendra Tirtha in the line senior of disciples coming from Sripad Vidyadhiraja Tirtha. I could find very little on his life, save and except where it  says that it was due to the blessings of Brahmanya Tirtha that the parents of Vyasa Tirtha, (Brahmanya Tirtha's disciples), owed the birth of their children notably Sripad Vyasa Tirtha(B.N.K. Sharma. 1961. History of the Dvaita School of Vedanta. page 460.).

As his permanent residence, Brahmanya Tirtha lived mostly at Cannapatna or Abbur in Karnataka State (B. Venkobarao. Vy-carita, Page 26.) There he had a Mutt of his own which later he was to entrust to his disciple Sridhar Tirtha. This Mutt which still survives today is called the Kundapur Mutt. His other disciple was the famous Sripad Vyasa Tirtha.
 Brahmanya Tirtha's only accredited literary work was a 'gloss' on the Tatparya of Jaya Tirtha. However, even this is challenged as not entirely well founded, mostly because his disciple Vyasa Tirtha made no reference to it anywhere!
 It is so unfortunate that these great devotees lives have slipped into obscurity, whether it was by their choice out of humility or just the influence of time. I guess now we will never really know. The Lord has his plan.

The Mutt lists give his demise as 1467 AD., this is accepted by the Vy-carita(B. Venkobarao, Vy-carita, introduction.). "It is however open to many objections. In the first plce, it gives his disciple Vyasa Tirtha a pontificial sway of over 70 years, which is too long. It also bestows on the latter a life of over 90 years which is not corroborated by other evidences. Venkoborao himself refers (pp. cxiv-cxv) to a tradion according to which Brahmanya died soon after a famine. On page 100 of his Forgotten Empire, Sewell says that 'about the 1475., the was a terrible famine in the Deccan and in the country of the Telugus, which lasted for two years(Also Ferishta, C. Scott edn. i, 162., S.I. I., page 227.). Venkobarao himself refers to two such famines which broke out in the years 1423-1425 and 1472-1474.,(Dharwar Gazetter, pp. 404-406.). The second one, it will be seen, syncronises with the date mentioned by Sewell. It is manifestly impossible that Brahmanya Tirtha could have died in the first famine. The date is too early for him. We have therefore to assume that it was after the famine of 1475-1476., that he died. The event, thus, cannot be placed earlier than 1476."(B.N.K. Sharma. 1961. History of the Dvaita School of Vedanta. page 460.).

On that sad note we push on to the next in line. Sadness turns to jubilation as we remember the increadible life of the disciple of Brahmanya Tirtha, Sripad Vyasa Tirtha.