01The city on the Tungabhadra
In the 1320s and 1330s the armies of the Delhi Sultanate broke the Kakatiyas, the Hoysalas and Kampili. The Vijayanagara tradition says two brothers of Kampili, Harihara and Bukka, met the sage Vidyaranya on the bank of the Tungabhadra, and that at his word they founded a new city and kingdom there in 1336, the city first called Vidyanagara after him. Later grants of the Sangama kings honour the Sringeri math, and the brothers’ line kept the Virupaksha temple at Hampi as its own.
02Panchadashi and Sringeri
He was known as Madhava before sannyasa, and tradition makes him the elder brother of Sayana, whose commentary on the four Vedas was written under Vijayanagara patronage. As Vidyaranya he wrote the Panchadashi, fifteen chapters on Advaita in plain verse, and the Jivanmukti Viveka, on living free while still in the body. Sringeri’s list of acharyas places him at the head of the peetham from 1380 until his death in 1386. He is credited with raising the Vidyashankara temple at Sringeri in 1338 over the samadhi of his guru Vidyatirtha.
