Srimad Ananda Tirtha

Srimad Ananda Tirtha, also known as Sukha Tirtha, Purnabodha and 
Purnapragya, is the founder of the doctrine of Tattvavada. He is the 
one of the great acaryas of Vedanta and is also one of the 
commentators on the Brahma-Sutra of Veda Vyasa. His doctrine asserts, 
that the differences are eternally real and that hence there is more 
than one absolute real and that Hari (Visnu) is the only entity 
praised in the srutis and their adjuncts. Thus he always identifies 
the Brahman of the Upanisads with Visnu and forcefully argues against 
the dichotomy of srutis (tattvavedaka / atattvavedaka) as claimed by 
Sri Sankaracarya, saying that such arbitration of apauruseya scripture 
is unacceptable both logically and spiritually. He also emphasizes 
that it is important to understand and specifically reject other 
schools' precepts and hence devotes much time to nitpicking analyses 
and denunciations of other doctrines.

Srimad Ananda Tirtha is commonly identified with Madhva, the third 
avatara of Mukhya Prana, the god of life, as given in the Balittha 
Sukta of the Rg Veda. The first two avataras are Hanuman and Bhimasena 
and the third is Madhva who came down to Earth as a sannyasi in order 
to avoid decimating the forces of evil (as he had done on the previous 
two occasions and as he would have done again - upsetting the flow of 
Kali-yuga in the process - if he were not a sannyasi). Srimad Ananda 
Tirtha himself makes the claim to being Madhva in several instances, 
one of which is in the Visnu-tattva-vinirnaya verse given on the cover 
page of this section. It was recognized in his own time and it has 
been documented that he had all two-and-thirty subha-laksanas that 
define a rju-tattvika-yogi, including the prescribed height of 
six-and-ninety inches ("sannavati angulo apetam").

However, he is firmly set against the notion of accepting doctrines 
because they come from prophets or claimed gods - he refuses to accept 
that it is possible to derive a meaningful spiritual system based on 
any but the apauruseya texts (the Vedas/Upanisads/srutis) and their 
adjuncts (the Iti-hasas, Puranas, etc.). He also dismisses claims that 
only part of the Vedas are useful and claims that even the so-called 
karma-kanda portions of them are only meant to worship Hari.

The earliest and most authentic biography of Srimad Ananda Tirtha is 
the Sumadhva-Vijaya, a.k.a. Madhva Vijaya, by Narayana Pandita, the 
son of his close disciple Trivikrama Pandita. There are other English 
biographies by C. M. Padmanabhachar, C. N. Krishnasvami Ayyar, S. 
Subbarao, and C. R. Krishnarao, among others, but these are not truly 
independent efforts, since they draw very deeply upon Narayana 
Pandita's work.

Madhva was known as Vasudeva as a child and was born in response to a 
prayer by some brahmanas of the Bhagavata sampradaya, as a result of 
which Visnu who Himself does not incarnate during Kali-yuga ordered 
His chief aide Mukhya Prana a.k.a. Vayu to go to Earth and rescue the 
mumuksus from the unrelenting deluge of the illusionist schools. 
Therefore Vayu was born in Pajaka-ksetra near Udupi (in modern 
Karnataka state) to Madhya-geha Bhatta. Even as a child he was 
extraordinary in every respect, repeatedly astounded his teachers and 
performed several miracles, a notable one being when he freed his 
father from the clutches of a loan shark by giving him a handful of 
tamarind seeds which satisfied the latter completely. He also killed 
the demon Manimanta who attacked him in the form of a snake by 
crushing the snake's head under his toe.

At the age of eight or thereabouts, he announced to his parents his 
intention to take up sannyasa and on noting their distress at this 
pronouncement, promised to wait until another son was born to them. 
Finally, at the age of eleven, upon the birth of a younger brother 
(who many years later joined his order as Visnu Tirtha) he was 
ordained into sannyasa whence he was given the name Ananda Tirtha by 
his guru Acyutapreksa Tirtha, a.k.a. Acyuta-pragya Tirtha. Soon 
afterward, when his guru attempted to educate him, he astounded the 
former by his knowledge. It is said that when his guru tried to teach 
him the noted Advaita text Ista-siddhi, he pointed out, to 
Acyutapreksa Tirtha's amazement, that there were 30 errors in the very 
first line of that work, where its author Vimuktatman pays obeisance 
to himself by saying something like: "The only truth is the soul's 
empirical knowledge. In the presence of this truth the world appears 
to be an illusory play. The essential soul manifests itself as I, you 
and everything..."

It was this profound knowledge of all subjects that earned him the 
title of "Purna-pragya", or "the one of complete wisdom." The 
initially discomfited but finally greatly pleased Acyutapreksa Tirtha 
soon gave up trying to educate the master and himself made a full 
conversion to Tattvavada under the name Purusottama Tirtha.

Srimad Ananda Tirtha is known for his skill at debate and repartee, 
which were amply evident when he roundly trounced all opponents who 
dared take him on. One early convert to his school was Sobhana Bhatta; 
after losing to Madhva in debate, he accepted the latter as his Guru, 
and was given sannyasa under the name Padmanabha Tirtha. Two other 
noted opponents whom Purna-pragya defeated in debate and converted to 
ardent devotees were Trivikrama Pandita and Syama Sastri - the latter 
accepted sannyasa as Narahari Tirtha.

Madhva made two trips to Badarikasrama, the abode of Badarayana a.k.a. 
Veda Vyasa, and on the first, obtained the imprimatur of BadarayaNa 
Himself for his Bhasya on the Bhagavad-gita, when the latter made the 
correction "vaksyami lesatah" ("I state infinitesimally"), in place of 
"vaksyami saktitah" ("I state as best as I can"). He also founded the 
Krsna temple at Udupi, when he rescued by his spiritual power a ship 
in distress on the high seas and got from its captain the apparently 
useless gift of a large mound of gopi-candana mud that had been used 
as the ship's ballast and which broke open to reveal the 
long-concealed icons of Krsna, Durga and Balarama. This is believed to 
be the occasion when he composed the Dvadasa Stotra, a set of twelve 
stotras in praise of Visnu that is collectively counted as one of his 
seven-and-thirty works.

There are many notable incidents on record involving Srimad Ananda 
Tirtha and it is futile to hope that a short piece like this one can 
capture even the essence of his mission correctly. However, in brief, 
two of them are the ones where he lifted and displaced a boulder 
weighing tons that was obstructing some construction; an inscription 
("Anandatirthena eka-hastena sthapita sila") made on the boulder at 
the time attests to the event to this day. On another occasion, he led 
some disciples to a spot where he showed them the long-buried weapons 
of the Pandavas, including the great mace he had wielded to telling 
effect as the mighty Bhimasena.

Visual evidence, if one may call it that, of Srimad Ananda Tirtha 
being Madhva, the avatara of Vayu, was obtained by Trivikrama Pandita 
when the latter had the great fortune to observe the three forms of 
Vayu worship simultaneously - Hanuman worshiping Rama, Bhimasena 
worshiping Krsna and Ananda Tirtha worshiping Vyasa. On that 
occasion Trivikrama Pandita composed the Hari-Vayu Stuti, also called 
just Vayu Stuti ("srimadvisnvanghrinistha atiguna gurutama 
srimadanandatirtha..."). Madhva himself validated the Vayu Stuti by 
adding the mangalacarana slokas called Narasimha-nakha stuti 
("pantvasman puruhuta vairi balavan...") to be chanted in the 
beginning and at the end of Vayu Stuti. This very short work of just 
two slokas is counted as one of his thirty-seven granthas.

Srimad Ananda Tirtha disappeared from amidst an audience after giving 
a lecture on the Aitareya Upanisad on the ninth day of the sukla paksa 
in the month of Magha in 1319 and now is permanently in Badarikasrama 
where he serves his master Badarayana in person.

