Vadirajatirtha

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Sri Vadirajatirtha 1480 - 1600,a Haridasa, is considered as the second highest saint in the Madhva hierarchy, next only to Srimad Ananda Tîrtha, even though his guru was Sri Vyasatirtha. He is regarded as an incarnation of Latavya. He was not only a great poet but also very effective in the administration of the Udupi Matha system. He brought about many changes to the operational system of the Matha which by itself showed his high placing in the Madhva hierarchy.

It was Sri Vadiraja Theertha who changed the Paryaya system of Udupi to two years from the earlier practice of 2 months. This extension of each individual Paryaya enabled the Swamis to travel far and wide and spread the message of Madhva tradition. Another of Sri Vadiraja Theertha's achievements is that he lived a life of 120 years and performed Lord Krishna's Paryaya at Udupi 5 times.

He is said to have been a native of the village of Huuvinakere, Kundapura taluk, Udupi District in Karnataka state. In an age that comprised of great Sanskrit scholars and intellects, Sri Vadirajatirtha who himself was a great scholar, was able to accommodate the needs of the less scholarly, taking the haridasa tradition to the masses by translating many important works into the Kannada language. He was able to explain sophisticated concepts in the form of simple stotras. About the saint, Dr. B.N.K. Sharma writes "In this respect, his work marks a new and necessary phase in the history of Dvaita literature and breathes the spirit of a new age which produced other popular exponents of Madhva-Siddhânta, both in Sanskrit and in Kannada".

[edit] Famous extant works

Yukti-Mallika (work on logical analysis of different philosophical systems)
Mahabharata-Prasthana (an independent view of Mahabharata by Veda Vyasa)
Mahabharata-tatparya-Nirnaya (commentary on same work written by Srimad Ananda tirtha)with Kannada translation.
Rukminisha-Vijaya (narrates encounter between Krishna and Shisupala)
Svapna-Vrndavanakhyana
Devotional songs in Kannada

Stotras