Bhaskararaya
Encyclopedia
Bhaskararaya (1690–1785) is widely considered an authority on all questions pertaining to the worship of the Mother Goddess in Hinduism
. The worship of Shakti
involves many hidden meanings of mantras and coded passages. It is said that these meanings were revealed to Bhaskararaya by the Goddess Herself. His works number more than 40 and range from Vedanta
to poems of devotion and from Indian logic
and Sanskrit grammar
to the science of Tantra
. The lineage of the succeeding Gurus is unbroken
and is now present in Hyderabad of India.
Three of his books are considered to be the holy triad on the worship of the Mother Goddess through what are considered her most secret mantras:
His Khadyota ("Firefly") commentary on the Ganesha Sahasranama
is considered authoritative by Ganapatya
.
, India
. His father was a great scholar who initiated his son in scholarly traditions at an early age. He was taken to Kashi
(Benares) and put under the tutelage of a renowned Pundit. He was initiated into the Sri Vidya Mantra Upasana by Guru Shiva Dutta Shukla of Surat
. A disciple king of his (Maratha king Serfoji I
of Thanjavur) invited him to the South and gifted him a whole village on the banks of the Cauvery river. Here he learnt Gauda tarka shastra under his guru Gangadhara Vajapeyi
who was staying at Thiruvalangadu. The guru stayed in one bank of Kaveri and Bhaskararaya made the village on the opposite bank his headquarters for the rest of his life - in order to stay close to his guru. It later came to be known as Bhaskararajapuram
. During his stay there and the nearby town of Madhyarjunam claims of his spiritual and psychic greatness began through purported miracles.
or saffron
-robed sannyasi was once passing his (Bhaskararaya's) house while he was sitting in the portico. The sannyasi felt hurt that the householder did not rise and make a prostration to him as every householder was obliged to do so on seeing a sannyasi. Later on a suitable occasion he brought the matter in public and censured Bhaskararaya. The latter immediately conducted a daring experiment in the presence of all. He pulled out the danda
(holy stick) which the renunciate was holding, put it on the floor, and made a full-length prostration to that stick. Lo and behold, the stick was immediately consumed in flames. Bhaskara Raya said that this was what would have happened to the sannyasi if he had prostrated to him.
On another occasion Bhaskararaya invited some pundits to his house for a participation in a yajna
. There they opened a debate with him and asked him intricate questions about mantra and tantra. Being an adept in these he shot back all the answers without the least hesitation.
One witness to this drama, a sannyasi named Kumkumanandaswami cautioned the challengers and declared, "Bhaskara Raya cannot be defeated in debate or by questions. It is the goddess Herself standing on his shoulders who is answering all your questions. I am able to see her standing on his shoulders!" Kumkumanandaswami himself was a great devotee mystic and ritual worshipper of the Goddess. He was so much full of "Devi-consciousness" that it is said even sacred ash thrown on his body immediately transformed into saffron (kumkumam) - hence his name. The pundits wanted to put to test this declaration of the Swami. They asked Bhaskararaya what looked like an impossible question- "The Lalitha-sahasranama mentions the Goddess as being served by sixty-four crores of goddesses called yoginis. Can you name each one of them, their origin and their qualities?" Bhaskararaya answered their question without hesitation, prompting the pundits to accept defeat and call off the debate.
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
. The worship of Shakti
Shakti
Shakti from Sanskrit shak - "to be able," meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism. Shakti is the concept, or personification, of divine feminine creative power, sometimes...
involves many hidden meanings of mantras and coded passages. It is said that these meanings were revealed to Bhaskararaya by the Goddess Herself. His works number more than 40 and range from Vedanta
Vedanta
Vedānta was originally a word used in Hindu philosophy as a synonym for that part of the Veda texts known also as the Upanishads. The name is a morphophonological form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedic hymns." It is also speculated that "Vedānta" means "the purpose or goal...
to poems of devotion and from Indian logic
Indian logic
The development of Indian logic dates back to the anviksiki of Medhatithi Gautama the Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini ; the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism ; the analysis of inference by Gotama , founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna...
and Sanskrit grammar
Sanskrit grammar
The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period , culminating in the Pāṇinian grammar of the 4th century BC.-Grammatical tradition:The...
to the science of Tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
. The lineage of the succeeding Gurus is unbroken
and is now present in Hyderabad of India.
Three of his books are considered to be the holy triad on the worship of the Mother Goddess through what are considered her most secret mantras:
- Varivasya Rahasya, is a scientific commentary on Sri Vidya mantra and worship. The Varivasya Rahasya contains 167 ślokas numbered consecutively. It has an accompanying commentary entitled "Prakāśa", also by Bhaskararaya.
- Setubandha is a technical treatise on Tantric practice. It is his magnum opus. It is a commentary on a portion of the Vāmakeśvara-tantra dealing with the external and internal worship of Śrī Tripurasundarī. This work was completed either in 1733 AD or in 1741 AD.
- Lalitāsahasranāmabhāsya is a commentary (bhāsya) on Lalita sahasranamaLalita sahasranamaLalita sahasranama is a sacred Hindu text dated to the 12th century A.D. for the worshippers of the Goddess Lalita Devi, i.e. the Divine Mother, in the form of her and the male gods' feminine power, Shakti. Lalita is the Goddess of bliss, an epithet for Parvati. Etymologically, "Lalita" means "She...
. This work was completed in 1728 AD.
His Khadyota ("Firefly") commentary on the Ganesha Sahasranama
Ganesha Sahasranama
The Ganesha Sahasranama is a litany of the names of Hindu deity Ganesha . A sahasranama is a Hindu hymn of praise in which a deity is referred to by 1,000 or more different names...
is considered authoritative by Ganapatya
Ganapatya
Ganapatya is a denomination of Hinduism that worships Ganesha as the Saguna Brahman.The worship of Ganesha is considered complementary with the worship of other deities. Hindus of all sects begin prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies with an invocation of Ganesha...
.
Early life
Bhaskararaya was born in Bhaga in MaharashtraMaharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. His father was a great scholar who initiated his son in scholarly traditions at an early age. He was taken to Kashi
Varanasi
-Etymology:The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi, for the old city lies in the north shores of the Ganga bounded by its two tributaries, the Varuna and the Asi, with the Ganges being to its south...
(Benares) and put under the tutelage of a renowned Pundit. He was initiated into the Sri Vidya Mantra Upasana by Guru Shiva Dutta Shukla of Surat
Surat
Surat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...
. A disciple king of his (Maratha king Serfoji I
Serfoji I
Serfoji I , also called Sarabhoji I, was the son of the Maratha ruler of Thanjavur Ekoji I and the Raja of Thanjavur from 1712 to 1728. He was the third Raja of the Bhonsle dynasty. He consolidated the hold of Marathas over Thanjavur and patronised arts and literature.- The Marava War of...
of Thanjavur) invited him to the South and gifted him a whole village on the banks of the Cauvery river. Here he learnt Gauda tarka shastra under his guru Gangadhara Vajapeyi
Gangadhara Vajapeyi
Gangadhara Vajapeyi was a great vedic sacrificer of the Krishna Yajurveda from Thiruvalangadu in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu....
who was staying at Thiruvalangadu. The guru stayed in one bank of Kaveri and Bhaskararaya made the village on the opposite bank his headquarters for the rest of his life - in order to stay close to his guru. It later came to be known as Bhaskararajapuram
Bhaskararajapuram
Bhaskararajapuram is a village in the Thiruvidaimarudur taluk of the Thanjavur district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is named after the 18th century Hindu saint Bhaskara Raya who is believed to have attained samadhi at this place and is separated from the neighbouring town of...
. During his stay there and the nearby town of Madhyarjunam claims of his spiritual and psychic greatness began through purported miracles.
Miracles attributed to Bhaskararaya
It is said that an ochreOchre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
or saffron
Saffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
-robed sannyasi was once passing his (Bhaskararaya's) house while he was sitting in the portico. The sannyasi felt hurt that the householder did not rise and make a prostration to him as every householder was obliged to do so on seeing a sannyasi. Later on a suitable occasion he brought the matter in public and censured Bhaskararaya. The latter immediately conducted a daring experiment in the presence of all. He pulled out the danda
Danda
In the Devanāgarī script, the danda is a punctuation character. The glyph consists of a single vertical stroke. The character can be found at code point U+0964 in Unicode. The "double danda" is at U+0965 . ISCII encodes danda at 0xEA....
(holy stick) which the renunciate was holding, put it on the floor, and made a full-length prostration to that stick. Lo and behold, the stick was immediately consumed in flames. Bhaskara Raya said that this was what would have happened to the sannyasi if he had prostrated to him.
On another occasion Bhaskararaya invited some pundits to his house for a participation in a yajna
Yajna
In Hinduism, yajna is a ritual of sacrifice derived from the practice of Vedic times. It is performed to please the gods or to attain certain wishes...
. There they opened a debate with him and asked him intricate questions about mantra and tantra. Being an adept in these he shot back all the answers without the least hesitation.
One witness to this drama, a sannyasi named Kumkumanandaswami cautioned the challengers and declared, "Bhaskara Raya cannot be defeated in debate or by questions. It is the goddess Herself standing on his shoulders who is answering all your questions. I am able to see her standing on his shoulders!" Kumkumanandaswami himself was a great devotee mystic and ritual worshipper of the Goddess. He was so much full of "Devi-consciousness" that it is said even sacred ash thrown on his body immediately transformed into saffron (kumkumam) - hence his name. The pundits wanted to put to test this declaration of the Swami. They asked Bhaskararaya what looked like an impossible question- "The Lalitha-sahasranama mentions the Goddess as being served by sixty-four crores of goddesses called yoginis. Can you name each one of them, their origin and their qualities?" Bhaskararaya answered their question without hesitation, prompting the pundits to accept defeat and call off the debate.