Vyasa Tirtha, the Vijayanagara Empire and contemporary India: The Destruction of the Brundavan at Hampi

Seldom does a Historian get to write about events that impact his personal life, beliefs and question the assumptions of his craft. In my life the destruction of the Brundavan of the great Madhava Saint and philosopher, Vyasa Tirtha by an act of calculated vandalism on the night of 15th July was just that moment. As a Madhva whose Ph D was on Vijayanagara History and most of whose reseach in some way has centered on Vijayanagara Empire, this bog among other things stand testement, I was deeply hurt by the images I saw. The vandalism of the Brundavan of Vyasa thirtha has been blamed on "treasure hunters". I do not think that this is a plausible hypothesis as everyone knows that a Brundavan does not contain any tresure except the mortal remains of the person whose smrithi is remembered by way of aradhana. which is performed every year inmemory of the Saint . This being the case blaming "tresasure hunters" seems to be an easy way to avoid raising valid questions. In Karnataka there is a lot of debate over the status of Lingayats. The Vokkaliga dominated H D Kumarawsamy Government is tottering and the state is in the grip of political uncertainity. This factor needs to be considered while dealing with the issue at hand. Identity politics has made it possible for every fractured identity group to become vocal and start demanding a peice of the electoral pie. The success of the BJP in the May 2019 General elections in which the BJP won 27 of 29 seats and the Vokkaliga leader, Deve Gowda himself losing the elections shows that there is a lot of political churning going on in Karnataka. I think that the politcal crisis in Karnataka has to be taken into consideration while addressing this issue.

The vadndalism of the Brundavan is shown in the photograph on the left. The Brundavan which is essentially granite slabs arranged is vertical slabs around the place where the mortal remains of the saint are interred. In the case of Vyasa thirtha he was interred in the island in the middle of the Tungabhadra River called, Nav Brundavan as nine such edifices are located there. The sanctity of the place is attedted by the songs of Purandara Dasa Knaka Dasa and others who spoke with bhakthi about the sacraltity of the place. Madhvas do not worship relics like the Roman Catholics venerate relics of saints. The brudavana is only a Site of Memory (lieu de Memoire).

The destruction of a sacred site suggets a calculated attempt at stirring up identity politics and humiliating a community that venerates saints like Vyasa, Jayatirta and Narahari Tirtha




The crime must have taken a good deal of the night and the criminalshad come equipped with elctrical torches and mechanized tools to pry open the stone slabs. When the site of the crime was examined the next day vital clues were found which enabled the Karnataka Police to apprehend 5 criminals from the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh, Let us see if the state is able to prosecute the case successfully in the Courts.

Vyasa tiirtha (AD 1477-1539) is one of the most celebrared figures in Madhva Dvaita Philosophy. He was well connected to the court of Saluva Narashima when he was ruling over Chandragiri Rajyam, the area around the Tirupathi region. When Saluva Narashima seized the throne of Vijayanagara in 1485, Vyasatirtha moved to Vijayanagara and was close to the Saluvas during the critical period of the Saluva Usurpation. After the death of Immadi Narashima the son of the Saluva king, the general Narasa Nayaka seized the throne or as the Inscriptions of the period put it gaciously accepted the Lion Throne. Narasa Nayaka was succeeded by his son, Krishnadeva raya (AD 1509-1529) and it was during the reign of the Tuluvas that Vyasatirtha became a very powerful personality. The dominance of Sri Vaishnavism in general and the Madhava faith, in particular during the Tuluva period needs to be examined in some detail. Both the Mutts of Uttaradi and Vyasa have Copper Plate Inscrioption dating to this period and unfortunately no attempt has been made to make these valuable records available to the Historians working on Vijayanagara.

Vyasatirtha was the clebrated author of the Tatparya Chandhrika and Taraka tandava. Being a scholar of Sanskrit and one with a fierce grasp over the textual tradition or Sampradaya, Vyasa tirtha had no problem in defeating the importatant exponents of advaita as shown by Somannatha in his Vyasa Yoga Carita. The closeness or proximity to the throne is also expalined by the fact that during the famous Conjunction of Nine Planets that took place in 1524 Vyasa tirtha occupied the throne thereby averting danger, as per the hagiographical tradition, to the Vijayanagara throne. It must be said that excessive partonage give to the Sri Vaishnava Religion led ultimately to the collapse of the empire.

The destruction of the Brundavan is a despicable act and must be condemend.

"The Empire of Apostles" A review of Empire Jesuit Evagalism and Imperialism

The Empire of Apostles: Religion, Accommodario and the Imagination of Empire
in Early Modern Brazil and India
Ananya Chakravati
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Post colonial litereary theory informed approaches to History make interesting reading and the imaginative leap from one corner of the world to another is breathtaking in its audacity as it is misinformed by its methodological and theoretical principles. The Empire of Apostles falls squarely in this category. It is essentailly an intellectual history of two Jesuit missions to India and Brazil: St. Francis Xavier in the case of India and Manuel de No'brega in the case of Brazil. What the author fails to understand that the expansion of the Roman Catholic Chrurch and other manifestations of Chruch based religiosities was accompanied by a horrendous display, theratrical at times, viciously exemplary on most ocassions, of violence against the indigenous people who had no real means of defending theselves against white imperialism. In his recent book, Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition, Fitzhugh Brundage has taken up precisely this issue and has provided an excellent method to pry open the suppressed histories of Rape, Genocide, Violence and Oppression that white impreialism brought in its wake. Perhaps there is no academic market for honest History anynore and we are left with the work I am reviewing because I paid my hard earned money to buy this book.

The Pope facilitated the division of the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese thrones and the Crown of Portugal was given the right of paodradoa to appont priests in both the Portuguese territories of Brazil and India. The Jesuits right from the time of St. Ignitius Loyola advocated a strong and mutually benefitting alliance with the Throne and this enables St Francis Xavier to come to India from where he went to the Spice Islands and Japan. Manuel de No'brega was sent to Brazil. In South America the Catholic Church along with the Spanish and Portuguese settlers unleashed a genocidal war against the First Citizens and the ideological justification for such horrendous dipplays of brutality was provided by the Churuch which said that it aims at Converting the people of the land so that their souls are saved. Church and State marched hand in had destroying the indigenous culture of South America. The Jesuits on a few ocassions tried to blunt the violent sword but their very presence in the theatres of war legitimised the venture. The process by which the Jesuits negotiated with the local indigenpous culture is termed as Accommodatio, cultural undersytanding tolerance or even compromise. In India Jesuits pioneered this art and Robert de Nobili and Beschi even appeared in Native garb to make people beleive that they have assimilated local culture. It goes without saying that such shenanigans did hoodwink the people.

In India, St Francis Xavier was the one responsible for bringing the dreeaded papal Instrument of Inquisition to Goa and until 1807 when the auto da faye was ended under English East India Company pressure, the Inqusition had claimed around 35,000 lives: People burnt at the stake for possessing Hindu icons or practicing the forbidden faith or keeping prayer books.  The Goa Archives contain a small fraction of the Inquisition records. Even Vijayanagara Empire did not interfere with the Portuguese cultural practices in their relic state.

The book is certainly not a contribution either to the history of India, Brazil or of the Poertuguese empire.