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RELIGIOUS SECTS
his followers, he was an incarnation of Váyu, or the god of air, who took upon him the human form by desire of NÁRÁYAŃA, and who had been previously incarnate as Hanumán and Bhima, in preceding ages. He was educated in the convent established at Ananteśvar, and in his ninth year was initiated into the order of Anachorets by ACHYUTA PRACHA, a descendant of SANAKA, son of BRAHMá. At that early age also he composed his Bhushya, or commentary on the Gitá, which he carried to Badarikáśrama, in the Himalaya, to present to VEDAVYÁSA, by whom he was received with great respect, and presented with three Sálagrams, which he brought back and established as objects of worship in the Maths of Udipi, Madhyatala, and Subrahmanya - he also erected and consecrated at Udipi the image of KŘISHŇA, that was originally made by ARJUNA, of which he became miraculously possessed.
A vessel from Dwarakú, trading along the Malabar coast, had taken on board, either accidentally or as ballast, a quantity of Gopichandana, or the sacred clay, from that city, in which the image was immersed: the vessel was wrecked off the Coast of Tuluva, but MadhwA receiving divine intimation of the existence of the image had it sought for, and recovered from the place where it had sunk', and established it as
This story is rather differently told by the late Colonel MACKENZIE in his account of the Marda Gooroos, published in the Asiatic Annual Register for 1804.
