Yadugiri Yathiraja Mutt at

Melkote Melukote in Pandavapura taluk of Mandya district, Karnataka, in southern India, is one of the sacred places in Karnataka.It is built on rocky hills, known as Yadugiri, Yaadavagiri and Yadushailadeepa, overlooking the Cauvery valley. Melukote i ...

is a

Tenkalai Sri Vaishnavism, or the Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya, is a denomination within the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. The name refers to goddess Lakshmi (also known as Sri), as well as a prefix that means "sacred, revered", and the god Vishnu, who ...

Sri Vaishnava Sri Vaishnavism, or the Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya, is a denomination within the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. The name refers to goddess Lakshmi (also known as Sri), as well as a prefix that means "sacred, revered", and the god Vishnu, who ...

Mutt founded by

Ramanujacharya Ramanuja (Middle Tamil: Rāmāṉujam; Classical Sanskrit: Rāmanuja; 1017 CE – 1137 CE; ; ), also known as Ramanujacharya, was an Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and a social reformer. He is noted to be one of the most important exponents o ...

for the management of

Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple, also known as Thirunarayanapura, is a temple in Melkote in the Mandya District of Karnataka, India. The temple is built on rocky hills which overlook the Kaveri valley. It is about from Mysore and from Bangalore ...

and the propagation of Ramanuja

Vishishtadvaita Vishishtadvaita (IAST '; sa, विशिष्टाद्वैत) is one of the most popular schools of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. Vedanta literally means the in depth meaning ''of the Vedas.'' ''Vishisht Advaita'' (literall ...

darshana In Indian religions, ''Darshana'', also spelt ''Darshan'', (Sanskrit: दर्शन, , ) or ''Darshanam'' (darśanam) is the auspicious sight of a deity or a holy person. The term also refers to six traditional schools of Hindu philosophy ...

. Yathiraja is also another name for Ramanuja.

Establishment

After Ramanujacharya was made the

rajguru Rajguru, also spelled as Rajyaguru, is an ancient title and surname of the Indian subcontinent which means ''royal priest''. Notable people *Rajguru Aggavamsa Mahathera, Bangladeshi Buddhist *Rajguru Priyo Ratana Mahathera, Buddhist guru *Basava ...

Hoysala Empire The Hoysala Empire was a Kannada people, Kannadiga power originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka, India, Karnataka between the 10th and the 14th centuries. The capital of the Hoysalas was initially loca ...

Lord Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within t ...

in a dream ordered Ramanuja to move to Melkote, where he would find the holy earth. Traditional accounts mention that the reason for travel was to search for namam clay for Srivaishnava Urdhva Pundra which was abundant in Melkote. Upon traveling, he found the holy earth and a

vigraha In the Hinduism, Hindu tradition, a ''murti'' ( sa, मूर्ति, mūrti, ) is a devotional image such as a statue, or "idol" (a common and non-pejorative term in Indian English), of a Hindu deities, deity or Hindu saints, saint. In Hin ...

of the god under an ant hill which was subsequently installed as the deity Tirunarayana of Melkote in the Bahudhanya year, Pushyamasa,

Shukla Paksha Paksha (also known as ''pakṣa''; sa, पक्ष, Nepal Bhasa: ''thwa'' and ''gа̄''; ) refers to a fortnight or a lunar phase in a month of the Hindu lunar calendar. Literally meaning "side", a paksha is the period either side of the F ...

, Chaturdashi according to

Pancharatra ''Pancharatra'' (IAST: ''Pāñcarātra'') was a religious movement in Hinduism that originated in late 3rd-century BCE around the ideas of Narayana and the various avatars of Vishnu as their central deities.agama. Ramanuja worshipped it for three days, followed by

kumbhabhishekham ''Kumbhabhishekam'', also known as ''Samprokshanam'' is a Hindu temple ritual that is believed to homogenize, synergize and unite the mystic powers of the deity. It is part of the consecration ceremony of Hindu temples. ''Kumbha'' means the Hea ...

and recited tamil vedas. Subsequently, the Yadugiri Yathiraja Mutt was established for a

sanyasi ''Sannyasa'' (Sanskrit: संन्यास; IAST: ), sometimes spelled Sanyasa (सन्न्यास) or Sanyasi (for the person), is life of renunciation and the fourth stage within the Hindu system of four life stages known as '' As ...

to live and manage the affairs of the temple. The Jeeyars of the mutt attracted devotees and received royal patronage by their scholarship, devotion, and other qualities. The mutt is entitled for a share in the properties, assets, funds, and services in the

. By 1256, Bhashyakara Sannidhi, a shrine for Ramanuja had been built and a Ramanuja Kutam, a choultry for feeding was provided a grant.

Guruparamparai

Ramanuja created a temple manual Niyamanappadi for the systematic application of temple activities and left the administration to his fifty-two pratama sishyas with Tiruvali Annan of Sadamarshana

gotra In Hindu culture, the term gotra (Sanskrit: गोत्र) is considered to be equivalent to lineage. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor or patriline. Generally, the gotra fo ...

Apastamba Dharmasutra ''Āpastamba Dharmasūtra'' (Sanskrit: आपस्तम्ब धर्मसूत्र) is a Sanskrit text and one of the oldest Dharma-related texts of Hinduism that have survived into the modern age from the 1st-millennium BCE. It is one of ...

Yajurveda The ''Yajurveda'' ( sa, यजुर्वेद, ', from ' meaning "worship", and ''veda'' meaning "knowledge") is the Veda primarily of prose mantras for worship rituals.Michael Witzel (2003), "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in ''The Blackwell C ...

shakha A shakha (Sanskrit ', "branch" or "limb") is a Hindu theological school that specializes in learning certain Vedic texts, or else the traditional texts followed by such a school.V. S. Apte. A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 913, left column.Moni ...

carrying out the orders of Jeeyar. In 1104, Ramanuja appointed Sri Deshantari Kelvi Tiru-Narayana Jeeyar as his successor at the mutt to propagate growth and was handed Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple

mudra A mudra (; sa, मुद्रा, , "seal", "mark", or "gesture"; ,) is a symbolic or ritual gesture or pose in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. While some mudras involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers. As wel ...

. With Ramanuja's motivating grace and as enshrined in the rule book Niyamanappadi, the Jeeyars continued the nitya bhagavat aradhana in & around the temple. The duties of the successor Jeeyars were to sign the papers relating to the temple treasury, look after the temple property, employ people for receiving all the income from the offerings, put his seal in addition to the royal seal and Ramanuja-mudre and receive the same honors that the fifty-two pratama sishyas were entitled to. The current Jeeyar is Sri Yadugiri Yatiraja Narayana Ramanuja Jeeyar Swami.

Later years

To this day, the mutt has had a long line of illustrious successors and the building is still intact. In the eighteenth century, due to the Vadakalai and Tenkalai sectarian disputes in

Tamilnadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language— ...

and the litigation that followed, all the wealth of the mutt was diverted towards the dispute. The Yadugiri Yathiraja Matha at Melkote became a Tenkalai matha, with subsects of Purvasikha, the Kilnattars, and the Mandyans representing the matha. A dispute known as the Tirtha case arose between the

Parakala Matha Parakala Matha, officially Bramhatantra Swatantra Parakala Matha, is a Vaishnavism, Vaishnava Matha, monastery established during the Hoysala Empire in 1268 at Mysore, Karnataka, primarily worshipping Hayagriva, Lord Hayagreeva along with his cons ...

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

and the Yadugiri Yathiraja Matha at Melkote on matters like the Mandayam entry and so on. The authorized representatives of Yadugiri Yathiraja Mutt observed that the Mandyam entry to the Yadugiri Yathiraja Mutt Gadi was from the year 1850 and that prior to that the line belonged to the Kilnattars and the present stone image of the sannyasin in the Yadugiri Yatiraja Math was the image of a purvasikhi, representative of the fifty-two followers of Ramanuja.

References

{{Reflist Sri Vaishnavism Hindu monasteries in India

Establishment

Guruparamparai

Later years

See also

References