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Life of Vallabha (1481-1533)
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Life of Vallabha (1481-1533). Vallabha was born in the lineage of Yajñanārāyana Bhatta; his great-grandfather was Gangādhara Bhatta, his grandfather Ganapati Bhatta, and his father Lakşmaņa Bhatta. It is said that among themselves they performed one hundred somayāgas (soma sacrifices). The family was one of Telugu Brahmins of South India, and the village to which they belonged was known as Kamkar Khamlh; his mother's name was Jllamagaru. Glasenapp, following N.G. Ghosh's sketch of Vallabhācārya, gives the date of his birth as A.D. 1479; but all the traditional accounts agree in holding that he was born in Pampāraṇya, near Benares, in Samvat 1535 (A.D. 1481), in the month of Vaišākha, on the eleventh lunar day of the dark fortnight. About the time of his birth there is some discrepancy of opinion; but it seems very probable that it was the early part of the night, when the Scorpion was on the eastern horizon. He was delivered from the womb in the seventh month underneath a tree, when Lakşmaņa Bhatta was fleeing from Benares on hearing of the invasion of that city by the Moslems; he received initiation from his father in his eighth year, and was handed over to Vişnucitta, with whom he began his early studies. His studies of the Vedas were carried on under several teachers, among were them Trirammalaya, Andhanārāyaṇadīkṣita and Mädhavayatindra. All these teachers belonged to the Madhva sect. After his father's death he went out on pilgrimage and began to have many disciples, Dāmodara, Sambhū, Svabhū, Svayambhū and others. Hearing of a disputation in the court of the king of Vidyānagara in the south, he started for the place with his disciples, carrying the Bhāgavata-purāņa and the symbolic stone (sālagrāma silā) of God with him. The discussion was on the problem of the determinate nature of Brahman; Vallabha, being of the Vişnusvāmī school, argued on behalf of the determinate nature of Brahian, and won after a protracted discussion which lasted for many days. He met here Vyāsa-tirtha, the great Madhva teacher. From Vidyānagara he moved towards Pampā and from there to the Rsyamukha hill, from there to Kāmākāsnī, from there to Kāncí, from there to Cidambaram and from there to Rāmeśvaram. Thence he turned northwards and, after passing through many places, came to Mahisapuri and was well received by the king of that place; from there he came
