[Chaturamnaya] His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Sacchidananda Sivabhinava Nrisimha Bharati - 23

[S Jayanarayanan]

 http://svbf.org/journal/vol8no1/2006_10_swamigal.pdf
 
 
Honours Conferred
-----------------
 
The crowd of devotees must have numbered
50,000 on a rough estimate. At four in the
evening the Swami gave a discourse on vaidika
dharma, the life of the great master Sankara and
our duty to the great teacher.
 
V. P. Madhava Rao, former Dewan of
Travancore and then Dewan of Mysore; P.
Rajagopalachariar, Dewan of Travancore; and H.
V. Nanjundayya, Member of Council, Mysore, were
present on this occasion. The learned and cultured
Swami of Sivaganga matha, a branch of the
Sringeri Peetham, was also there. Others included
Ramachandra Aiyar, who was conferred the title
of Guru-bhakta-kesari, and Sri T. K.
Balasubrahmanya Aiyar of the Sri Vani Vilas Press,
Srirangam, who had spent a fortune on the deluxe
edition of Sankara’s works, had 10 volumes ready
on this occasion and placed them before the
Swami.
 
The Swami stayed at Kalady for three
months, spending his mornings in offering special
prayers in the new shrines and giving discourses
on dharma in the evenings. The Maharaja of
Cochin came to Kalady during this period and
paid his respects to the Swami and his adorations
at the new shrines. He was a very great Sanskrit
scholar, particularly in logic and Vedanta.
 
A school for advanced studies in Sanskrit
was started; the atmosphere of the place breathed
peace, fervour and culture, under the selfless
devotion of learned disputations with the pandits
of the matha; the Swami presided with glee and
electrified the audience with his learned
discussions and illuminating discourses. Then the
Maharaja of Mysore came to Kalady with a select
retinue and stayed as the Swami’s guest for a
couple of days and was honoured with the title of
Dharma-mula.
 
At the end of three months, the Swami
placed the Kalady shrines and all in charge of A.
Ramachandra Aiyar and left for Sringeri.
 
The Swami returned via the State of
Cochin. After passing through Coimbatore,
Namakkal and other places, he came to
Ayyampalayam, where a murti of Sankara, was
installed in the big hall of the shrine under the
Swami’s auspices.
 
Now came the Swami’s 51st birthday. With
the Swami’s permission, a murti of the Swami also
was installed on the right side of that of Sankara,
by N. Srikantha Sastri. At the close of the
Chaturmasya, the Swami honoured Tandavaraya
Pillai with the title of Bhakta-ratna and left for
Mysore.
 
In Bangalore, the matha, whose foundation
had been laid in 190; was now complete and was
a grand and imposing structure. On February 3,
1911, the Swami sent for the Mysore Maharaja
and a few high officials and told them that his
idea in building the matha was to make it a centre
of advanced Sanskrit studies and establish a
Sanskrit college under the title of Bharatiya
Girvana Prauda Vidya Abhivardhani, where in
course of time provision could be made for
boarding and educating free 50 advanced students
in Purva and Uttara Mimamsa and that a start
would be soon made with eight advanced students
and two teacher Pandits.
 
V. P. Madhava Rao, the Dewan, had built a
row of seven houses for the students.
 
The Swami reached Sringeri on Phalguna,
dark 2 (Krishna dvitiya), in the year Sadharana
(March 1911), went to the shrine of Sharadamba
and paid his adorations to the deity. The Swami
soon left Nrisimhavana and resumed his quiet,
meditative life there.
 
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