Piligramic Places in South India - Sri Guru Raghavendra Swamy Mutt – Mantralaya

Sri Guru Raghavendra Swamy is a 16th Century Hindu saint who preached about Madhvism and Sri Madhvacharya’s Dvaita philosophy.

Madhvism is about worship of Vishnu as Supreme God and Madhvacharya was a Hindu Philosopher and proponent of Dvaita school of Vedanta. Please check references section for information on Madhvacharya.

Early Life and Marriage:

Sri Raghavendra was born in Bhuvanagiri which is situated in South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and is believed to be born in the year 1595 in a family of scholars and musicians. Raghavendra Swamy’s original name was Venkatanatha and his parents are Timmanacharya and Gopikamba. After early demise of his father, Venkatanatha’s education was undertaken by his brother in law Lakshminarasimhacharya.

Venkatanatha, after his education, married Saraswathi Bai in 1614 and had a son Lakshminarayanacharya. After marriage, Venkatanatha and his family moved to Kumbakonam and he studied Literacy works, grammar and Dvaita Vedanta under the guidance of Sri Sudhindra Teertha, pontiff of Kumbakonam Mutt.

Sri Sudhindra Teertha wanted Venkatanatha to succeed him as pontiff of Kumbakonam Mutt since he was impressed by the knowledge and that, Venkatanatha consistently prevailed over renowned and reputed scholars, irrespective of the complexity of the debates.

Monk and Montiff:

Venkatanatha was incarnated as Monk in 1621 and became the pontiff of Kumbakonam Mutt in 1623 under name Raghavendra Teertha as Sri Sudhindra Teertha passed away.

It was believed that Venkatanatha was not ready to become monk since he had a young wife and kid. But, he was blessed by Goddess of learning in his dream to become a Sanyasi (the monk), which changed the mindset of Venkatanatha and agreed to be the monk.

South India Tour by Raghavendra Teertha:

Raghavendra Teertha started touring South India and visited places like Rameshwaram, Srirangam, Madurai, Kanyakumari, Thiruvananthapuram, Udupi, and Kukke Subramanya.

One of the miracles created by Sri Raghavendra Teertha to make an illiterate sheep rancher to read a letter impressed the Nawab of Adoni, Siddi Masud Khan and made him one of Sri Raghavendra Teertha’s followers.

Once, Sri Raghavendra Teertha Swamiji got an opportunity to meet the Nawab. Nawab, instead of being respectful to Sri Raghavendra Teertha, wanted to test his spiritual skills by offering meat in a plate covered with cloth. Swamiji took some water from his kamandalu and poured it on plate as part of cleaning the food before eating. He opened the plate and it was full of Fresh Fruits instead of meat.

This made the Nawab to become the devotee of Swamiji and he offered to give any amount of land and wealth to Swamiji.

But, swamiji refused to take the land for his personal use and asked the land on the banks of river Tungabhadra to be provided to construct a mutt and thus the place Mantralaya was created.

It was believed that it was the region where King Prahalada had performed his yagnyas to Lord Rama during the Dwapara Yuga and was hence an extremely holy land. Thus the Mutt moved to Mantralaya where Sri Raghavendra Swamy continued his spiritual journey.
At Mantralaya, Sri Guru Raghavendra encouraged Annadhanam (donation of food) to all devotees. It is a practice that is followed by the Matt to this date and is heavily subsidized by donations.

Jeeva Samadhi:

In 1671, Swamiji gave a soul-stirring speech to his disciples and right after speech, he entered Brindavana, which was specially constructed for Swamiji’s Jeeva Samadhi (live tomb creation).

He had advised his disciples to start arranging slabs around him once the japamala rolling by fingers in his hand become still.

He began reciting the pranava mantra and slipped into deep Samadhi. Once his japamala became still, his disciples arranged the slabs up to his head.

Thus Sri Raghavendra Swami attained Jeeva Samadhi on Dwitiya Day of Sravana Krishna Paksha in 1671. This date is celebrated each year as Sri Raghavendra Swamy Aradhana at Brindavana all over the world. The Raghavendra Mutt in Mantralayam housing his Brindavana is visited by thousands of devotees every year.

The famous 2 stanza sloka for Sri Raghavendra Teertha Swamiji is as below:

"Poojyaaya Raaghavendraaya Satya Dharma Rathaayacha
Bhajataam Kalpa Vrukshaaya Namathaam Kaamadhenave"

Travel Guide to Mantralaya:

Mantralaya is well connected by Road and Train from different cities in South and Central India like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad etc.

I would like to give credit to websites mentioned below under “References” heading, as most of the information provided here is derived from those websites. Please visit those websites for more information.

References:
http://sriraghavendraswami.blogspot.in/p/history-of-sri-raghavendra-swamy.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghavendra_Tirtha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhvacharya
https://wikitravel.org/en/Mantralayam?title=Mantralayam

Thanks, I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you are planning South India tour, you can include this place in your itinerary. This place is also surrounded by other pilgrimage places like Srisailam, Tirupati etc.

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