ArAdhane: jEshTa shuddha chaturdashI
Parampare: #9, in padmanAbha tIrthara maTa which later became popular as shripAdarAja maTa itself
sanyAsa name: lakshInArAyaNa muni
Birth: 1406
sanyAsa period: 1412 - 1502
Ashrama gurugaLu: shri swarNavarNa tIrtharu
vidyA gurugaLu: shri vibhudEndra tIrtharu, rAyara matA parampare
shishyaru: shri hayagrIva tIrtharu
vidyA shishyaru: shri vyAsarAjaru
brindAvana: narasimha tIrtha, muLabAgilu
There is a belief among mAdhwAs that reciting the name of shri shripAdarAjaru as soon as one gets up from the bed with sincere devotion will bestow upon him sumptuous food on that day. True to the spirit of the belief, there lived a great saint and scholar by name Shri ShrIpAdarAjaru in 14th century during the period of King sALuva narasimha rAya of Vijayanagara Empire.
An outstanding Saint in mAdhwa parampare, Shri ShrIpAdarAjaru is an incarnation of King Dhruva popularly known as Bhaktha Dhruva who went on to perform severe penance at a tender age to have the darshan of Lord Shriman nArAyaNa. Pleased with his penance Lord Shriman nArAyaNa blessed him as the monarch of Dhruva Mandala in the Universe for a period of Brahma Kalpa.
ShripAdarAjaru was born to Shri shEshagiri AchArya and Smt. Giriamma in abbUr village near Chennapatna. During his childhood he was known as Lakshminarayana. After Upanayana, Shri Lakshminarayana was inducted into Yati Aashrama dharma by Shri Swarnavarna Theertharu and thenceforth was referred to as Shri Lakshminarayana Muni.
Shri Lakshminarayana Muni continued his further studies under the guidance of another great saint Shri vibhudEndra tIrtharu, of rAyara maTa. Given his deep scholarship, he was given the title of ShripAdarAjaru (king of sanyAsIs).
Shri shripAdarAjaru has made an outstanding contribution to propagate tatvavAda. He was a brilliant scholar as well as a great author. He had authored several works on Dvaita Siddhantha - vAgvajra in Sanskrit and madhwanAma in KannaDa are popular. He was Vidya Guru of his gifted disciple Shri Vyasarajaru who went on to become the rAja Guru of Vijayanagara Empire.
Shri ShrIpAdarAjarj reinitiated dAsa sahitya and composed several devaranAmAs in kannaDa.
Shri ShrIpAdarAjaru was honored to sit on the throne and kanakabhisheka was performed on him by King Saluva Narasimha Raya as a token of his gratitude to the great Saint for providing him relief from brahma hatya dOsha.
He was also invited to perform pUja at tirumala. He instead sent his favorite disicple - shri vyAsarAjaru, who did the pUja for 12 years and then handed back the responsibilities to the hereditary family which was performing pUja earlier.
ShripAdarAjaru had sukha prArabhdha given his royal lineage. Every day, he used to offer 64 types of items in the naivEdya for God and then partake the same. This was true even when he was performing pUjE in remote and small places.
MuLabAgilu became famous during his time as he was running a University there. In muLabAgilu town, he did the pratishTApane of shri lakshmInArAyana dEvaru.
Sri Sripadarajaru, who had Mulabagalu as his working capital, consecrated many Sri Lakshminarayana vigrahas.
The first vigraha is at the shripAdarAja maTa in muLabAgalu town
Then at villages: Sundarapalya, Vengasandra, Gennera Halli, Devaraya Samudra,
Also, one at Vaniyambadi
And finally at swayam vaktha kshetra Srimushnam.
Sri Rajaru has made one copper Sri Lakshminarayana prathime, as representative of all the Sri Lakshminarayana vigraha prathistapane done by him and worshpped in the peeta along with Sri Gopinatha Devaru. The same prathime could be seen during the samsthana pooja at Sri Sripadaraja maTa.
Interestingly, Sri Vyasarajaru followed the above model of his gurugaLu. Sri Vyasarajaru had made silver pranadevau, invoking the 732 pranadevau in this silver prathime. Also he made one Pranadevaru in a Frame. This is the utsava murthy for all the 732 pranadevaru. This shows how shisya followed the Gurugala model. Both the pranadevarus could be seen in the Sri Vyasaraja maha samsthana during pooja time.
He has also done several other pratishTApanEs including the ashwath narasimha dEvaru in chikalparavi, the village where later shri vijaya dAsaru was born and he did sAdhanE at the feet of ashwath narasimha dEvaru.
There is also an interesting tale behind the popularity of narasimha tIrtha. When shrIpAddarAjaru had become old he wanted to have Ganga snAna but could not travel due to his old age. On a prayer made by him, River Ganga came down to mix with the waters of narasimha tIrtha, the pushkaraNi.
tham vandE narasimha tIrtha nilayam shri vyAsarAt pUjitham
dhyAyantam manasa narasimha charanam shri shrIpAdarAjam gurum
| Category | Aradhana |
| month | Jyesta |
| paksha | Shukla |
| tithi | Chaturdashi |
| Nakshatra | |
| yogha |
