[Advaita-l] Jagadguru Sri Vruddha Narasimha Bharati Mahaswamiji

[Divya Meedin]

Jagadguru Sri Vruddha Narasimha Bharati Mahaswamiji (Aradhana today)

प्रह्लादवरदो देवो यो नृसिंहः परो हरिः ।
नृसिंहोपासकं नित्यं तं नृसिंहगुरुं भजे ॥

Source: http://www.kamakotimandali.com/sringeri/sharadapeetham.html

Sri Sacchidananda Bharati (third) had two chief disciples, Narasimha
Bharati and Veera Raghava. Narasimha Shastry left for Varanasi for higher
studies. Swamigal initiated Veera Raghava, who belonged to the Kaundinya
Gotra, into Sanyasa with the title Abhinava Sacchidananda Bharati. After
the Siddhi of Swamigal, the young Acharya, who was only eighteen, ascended
the Vyakhyana Peetham. He established a Srichakra in Jnananandeshwara
Temple on the banks of Manikarnika. Due to his failing health, he gave
Sanyasa to his Saha Shishya Narasimha Shastry and attained Siddhi in 1817.
Narasimha Shastry, who later came to be revered as Sri Vriddha Nrisimha
Bharati or Ugra Nrisimha Bharati all over the country, belonged to the
Bharadwaja Gotra, Yajusshakha. He had studied under the great scholar
Vancheshwara Shastry of Kashi. When he ascended the Peetham, he was only
nineteen. The Mutt was also in a bad financial state. He spent many years
on Narasimha Parvata, practicing and perfecting Upasanas of Srividya and
Ugra Nrisimha. His mantra Siddhi was enormous and beyond comparison. People
held him to be the very manifestation of Lord Ugra Nrisimha. From the age
of forty, he began to eat only bitter gourd for food. He had completely
given up sleep.

British chief commissioner Bowring came to hear about the spectacular power
of restraint of Mahaswamigal. When Swamigal was in Bangalore, Bowring
silently came to visit him one midnight. When he peeped through a window,
he was amazed to see Acharya absorbed in Pooja of Lord Chandramouleshwara.
He fell at the feet of Swamigal and sought his blessings. Swamigal
undertook a great pilgrimage from Rameshwaram in the south to Badari in
north. He was followed by thousands of scholars and devout people all
through the journey. He was a great linguist and could discourse fluently
in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit. When
Swamigal visited Nagpur, the king of the city showed disrespect to
Mahaswamigal. The effect of his misbehavior was severe. He began to face
hundreds of problems and finally realized that it was due to Guru Droha. He
fell at the feet of Mahaswamigal, took Mantropadesha and freed himself from
problems. A few writings of Mr. Bowring indicate his immense respect for
Mahaswamigal.

During his Sanchara, Mahaswamigal visited Gujrat. A Gujrati gentleman had
constructed a new house, spending lakhs of rupees. But he was unable to
live in that house because of a Brahma Rakshasa, which was haunting the
house. Without telling anyone about this incident, he invited Mahaswamigal
to stay in his newly constructed house. That night, when Swamigal was busy
in Srichakra Pooja, he noticed a figure leaning against a pillar and
staring at him. The man looked like a well-read scholar. Swamigal signaled
him to come and sit in front of him but the man showed no response.
Swamigal immediately realized that the man was no mortal. He took some
water in his right hand, chanted the Ugra Nrisimha mantra and threw it on
the Brahma Rakshasa. Due to the immense power of the mantra, the Rakshasa
began to scream fire, fire!-and jumped into the well located behind the
house. All the people who had fallen asleep woke up due to his screams.
When they looked into the well, the clothes, which the Brahma Rakshasa had
been wearing, were floating on the surface. Mahaswamigal assured that the
house was fit for residence and that he had freed it from the Brahma
Rakshasa.

Swamigal was once camping the in the Kalyana Mantapa in Madurai Minakshi
temple complex. As per the tradition of Shankara Mutt, he entered the
sanctum sanctorum of Sri Minakshi and began performing Pooja to Ambal. The
priests of the temple gathered there in groups and opposed Swamigal's
Pooja. Displeased with their behavior, he immediately attracted Goddess
Minakshi into two coconuts and placed it outside the temple in front of
Garuda Stambha. He said, Ţmba has graciously agreed to accompany me. You
need not go all the way into the temple to worship her. She is right here
in these coconuts. You may worship her right here- From then on, no one
visited the sanctum sanctorum of Minakshi. Thousands of people began to
worship the Goddess in the coconuts. The idol of Amba became lifeless and
the priests of the temple began to suffer in many ways. They realized their
mistake and fell at the feet of Mahaswamigal. The compassionate sage, Sri
Vriddha Nrisimha Bharati forgave them and reinstalled the deity into the
idol of Sri Minakshi. To this day in Sringeri, Naivedya is offered to Sri
Minakshi and Sri Sundareshwara during Chandramouleshwara Pooja.

In 1838, he visited Rameshwaram. A group of Brahmanas called Arya
Brahmanas, who mainly acted as priests to the non-Brahmins, lived in
Rameshwaram. People who visited Rameshwaram generally take bath in all the
Tirthas there and finally in Koti Tirtha. They also carry the water of this
Tirtha home and distribute it to friends and family. The Arya Brahmanas had
constructed a door to Koti Tirtha and had kept it under lock and key. When
Swamigal visited Koti Tirtha, they insisted that only they could fetch
water from the Tirtha and even charged some money for the same. He
immediately went to another Tirtha nearby called Sarva Tirtha and declared,
It is enough if you bathe in this Tirtha. It has all the other Tirthas in
itself, including the Koti Tirtha- He himself took bath in Sarva Tirtha and
returned to Sringeri. For a period of forty years, as per Mahaswamigal
orders, no one visited Koti Tirtha or took bath in it. People began to keep
away from the Arya Brahmanas because the Jagadguru had cursed them. The
water of Koti Tirtha became stale and filled with worms. Realizing their
mistake, the Arya Brahmanas visited Sringeri and asked Swamigal to sanctify
Koti Tirtha and make it fit once again. Swamigal agreed to their request,
visited Rameshwaram and sanctified the water of Koti Tirtha with the water
of Sarva Tirtha.

One night, when Sri Swamigal was in Ekanta Pooja, a beautiful Suvasini
appeared before him and said, Å­eave your place- Swamigal at once realized
that it was time to choose his successor. He chose a Brahmachari Shivaswami
as his successor in 1866 and attained Videha Mukti in 1879.

Born of highly learned and pious parents, Shivaswami inherited at his very
birth all the learning and piety and the religious fervor of his father,
Sri Kunigal Rama Shastrigal, the famous Vidvan at the court of the Maharaja
Krishna Raja Wodayar III of Mysore and the favored disciple of the renowned
Tryambaka Shastrigal of the Court of the Peshwas of Poona. Even as an
infant of two years, he lisped out the Stotras repeated by his father and
danced with him in his Agnihotra house. Even then he used to smear himself
with holy ashes and play with the children at worshipping the Gods. The
child was the father of the man and even at a very early age he exhibited
traces of all the characteristics that went in later years to make him the
greatest of all mortals. At the age of eight he was invested with the
sacred thread by his elder brother the well known Sri Lakshmi Nrisimha
Shastrigal and soon after he was initiated into the Sanyasa Ashrama by the
then Jagadguru of the Sringeri Mutt Sri Ugra Nrisimha Bharati Swamigal, and
this was the signal for the exhibition of his greatness.

It is said that due to intense Upasana of Bhagavan Narasimha, the very form
of the elder Swamigal seemed like that of Sri Nrisimha. He initiated
Shivaswami into Sanyasa as per the orders of Sridevi who had appeared to
him as a Suvasini, with the Yoga title Sri Sacchidananda Shivabhinava
Nrisimha Bharati reiterating the Truth Shiva-Vishnu Abheda. On the very day
he became a Sanyasin it was rather late in the evening when all the
necessary rites were finished and when the Sringeri Jagadguru found this
young boy of only eight years of age naturally tired, he asked him to
retire and when our marvelous young Swami went to sleep he uttered in his
sleep the following grand truth for the realization of which the most
learned people yearn in vain viz.,`Sarvoham` thus giving out for the first
time a glimpse of his universality.


Namaskaram,
Divya