Little survives about Rajendra Tirtha's own teaching or personal character. But the record is unusually clear about who came after him. This is true both for his own main line of successors and for the disciples who carried his name far beyond Karnataka.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Main successor (Gaudiya-tradition sources) | Jayadharma, also called Vijayadhvaja Tirtha |
| Alternate genealogy (Mutt tables) | Some tables instead place Vijayadhvaja Tirtha in the Pejawara Matha, descending from Akshobhya Tirtha |
| Disciple in North India | Vishnudasacharya (c. 1390-1440), author of Vadaratnavali and other dialectical works |
| Fourth successor | Sri Vyasa Tirtha, whose fame later gave the whole matha line its present name |
Jayadharma, or a Different Line #
Both the Gaudiya parampara list and gaudiyahistory.iskcondesiretree.com's own research name Jayadharma, also known as Vijayadhvaja Tirtha, as Rajendra Tirtha's disciple and immediate successor in this line. Srila Prabhupada's own purport to Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya 9.245, records the same sequence directly from the South Kanada Manual. The purport gives it as "Rajendra Tirtha... Vijayadhvaja; Purushottama; Subrahmanya; and Vyasa Raya," naming the whole chain in one place. Little is documented about these six names, and this is a rare case of a Gaudiya source listing the chain in full.
But in fairness, not every source agrees. Some lineage tables of the Madhva mathas instead list Vijayadhvaja Tirtha as belonging to the Pejawara Matha. This was one of the eight original mathas founded directly by Madhvacharya at Udupi. In these tables Vijayadhvaja Tirtha descends from a disciple named Akshobhya Tirtha, not from Rajendra Tirtha's own line. This separate difference belongs more properly on Jayadharma's own page. We mention it here too, because it means that even Rajendra Tirtha's most basic claim, a named successor, is not completely free of dispute in the wider record.
A Student Who Went North #
Apart from the main succession, Dvaita-tradition sources credit Rajendra Tirtha with training at least one disciple, Vishnudasacharya. He is said to have taken Madhva teaching into North India nearly a century before Vyasa Tirtha's own much greater fame there. Vishnudasacharya is remembered for a handful of Sanskrit works of philosophical debate: Vadaratnavali, Khandana-Khandana and Vivarana Vidambana. These works reportedly made a real impression on the scholars of that time. He should not be confused with a different, later Vishnu Puri, who was a disciple of Jayadharma himself. This Vishnu Puri compiled a well-known collection of verses from Srimad-Bhagavatam called Bhakti-ratnavali. According to Vaishnava tradition, he presented it in his old age to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Because their names are similar, the two are easy to mix up, and it is important to keep them apart.
Four Generations to Vyasa Tirtha #
The matha that Rajendra Tirtha founded continued as an independent line for roughly four generations of teachers. Then its most famous pontiff took the seat. This was Sri Vyasa Tirtha, also called Vyasaraya or Vyasaraja, the sixteenth-century royal guru at the court of the Vijayanagara Empire. The matha was later named after him, and it still carries that name today, Vyasaraja Matha. Much about Rajendra Tirtha's own life remains uncertain. But this much is not in doubt. The matha he built after a missed handover in the fourteenth century is still standing, on the banks of the Kaveri river at Sosale, more than six hundred years later.
