Bharati TirthaSringeri Sharada Peetham
ENहिन्दी

A chronological narrative

Life & Journey

From a Vedic household beside the Naguleru to the seat of Adi Shankaracharya at Sringeri — a life of study, renunciation and service.

  1. 1951Early years
  2. 1966Meeting the Guru
  3. 1966–74Education in the Shastras
  4. 1974Sannyasa
  5. 1974–89Successor-designate
  6. 1989Ascending the Peetham
  7. 1990sLeadership of Sringeri
  8. 2015Initiating a successor
  9. 2023–25Golden jubilee
  10. TodayContinuing work
Chapter i1951

Early years

Sitarama Anjaneyulu was born on 11 April 1951 in Alugumallepadu, a village in the Palnadu area of the then Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, on the banks of the river Naguleru. The family, the Tangiralas, were a Smartha family following the Krishna Yajur Veda. His father, Venkateshwara Avadhani, was learned in the Vedas; his mother was Ananthalakshmamma.

He was born after four daughters. The official biography records that his father had vowed to name a son after Sita and Rama, and his mother had vowed to name him after Anjaneya — and so both vows were kept in the name Sitarama Anjaneyulu. As a small child of three, the biography notes, the name of Lord Shiva was constantly on his lips.

His gifts for language appeared early. Studying Sanskrit outside school hours, he had a considerable command of it by the age of nine. He was praised by the Telugu poet Kavi Samrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana, won prizes, and was invited by All India Radio, Vijayawada, to take part in its Sanskrit programmes. At night he learnt the Vedas from his father — the Samhita, Brahmana and Aranyaka — and he passed the Guntur District Vedapravardhaka Vidwat Pariksha with honours.

It was in Vijayawada that he first saw the Jagadguru of Sringeri. Asked by his teacher to speak in Sanskrit before Sri Abhinava Vidyatirtha Mahaswamiji, he received a special prize from him. Recalling that time, he later said:

I had the good fortune of having the darshan of the Jagadguru quite early in life.

Quoted in the official biography, sringeri.net
Chapter ii1966

Meeting the Guru

By 1966 the fifteen-year-old had finished high school, and his father advised him to pursue higher studies. His heart, however, was already set elsewhere. That year Jagadguru Sri Abhinava Vidyatirtha Mahaswamiji was observing the Chaturmasya — the four-month period of retreat of a sannyasi — at Ujjain.

The biography describes the moment simply. As the Acharya was returning from his bath in the river Sipra, Sitarama Anjaneyulu prostrated before him and asked to be accepted as his student. The request was granted, and the very next day the Acharya began teaching him. From then on, the young student accompanied his Guru on all his tours.

His Holiness has since been in my mind always. I used to feel that I was guided by His Holiness whenever there was a problem.

Jagadguru Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji, recalling his Guru — sringeri.net

This meeting is the hinge of his life, and it illustrates something central to the tradition described on the Guru Parampara page: knowledge of the Self is sought from a living teacher, and the relationship between Guru and disciple is its channel.

Chapter iii1966–74

Education in the Shastras

What followed was a classical education of unusual intensity, given personally by the Jagadguru. According to Hinduism Today, the first lesson was the Tarka Sangraha, the standard primer of Indian logic. The official biography records that within eight years he completed the study of the Krishna Yajur Veda, Purva and Uttara Mimamsa, Nyaya Shastra, and many other treatises and commentaries; that quite early in life he had completed grammar, literature, logic and philosophy; and that he also became a poet in Sanskrit.

Jagadguru Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji, wearing spectacles, reads a text laid open on a low desk; a framed photograph of the Jagadguru seated in meditation stands behind him
Study remains part of the Jagadguru’s daily life. A framed portrait of him seated in meditation stands behind.
VyakaranaGrammar — the discipline of precise language on which all interpretation depends.
NyayaLogic and epistemology — how valid knowledge is gained and tested.
Purva MimamsaThe science of interpreting the Vedic injunctions and ritual texts.
Uttara MimamsaVedanta — inquiry into the Upanishads and the nature of Brahman.

This breadth matters. In the traditional system, Vedanta is not studied in isolation: grammar, logic and hermeneutics are the tools with which the Upanishads and Shankaracharya’s commentaries are read and defended. For an introduction to the philosophy itself, see Advaita Vedanta.

Chapter iv1974

Sannyasa

On 11 November 1974 — Ashwayuja Krishna Dvadashi in the Ananda Samvatsara — Sri Abhinava Vidyatirtha Mahaswamiji initiated his disciple into Sannyasa, gave him the name Bharati Tirtha, and declared him his successor. On the same day, at a felicitation meeting attended by public dignitaries, the new sannyasi gave his first speech in Kannada.

Sannyasa is the fourth and final stage of life (ashrama) in the Vedic scheme. The sannyasi renounces family ties, property and ritual obligations in order to devote himself wholly to the knowledge of the Self. In the Shankara tradition it carries particular weight: Shankaracharya taught that liberating knowledge is pursued most fully in renunciation, and every Acharya of the Peethams is a sannyasi. Taking Sannyasa from one’s Guru and receiving a new name marks the end of the old personal identity — hence the former name is afterwards called the purvashrama name, the name “of the previous stage”.

Chapter v1974–89

Fifteen years beside his Guru

For about fifteen years after his Sannyasa the young Acharya remained under the direct care and guidance of his Guru. A few months after the initiation, the two set out together on a Vijaya Yatra to Rameshwaram; at Gobichettipalayam on that tour he addressed the gathering in chaste Tamil. The Peetham records Vijaya Yatras made together in 1975, 1977, 1979–80, 1981 and 1984.

These journeys were an apprenticeship in the role he would one day hold: meeting devotees across regions and languages, observing how his Guru taught, guided and administered, and continuing his own study throughout.

Chapter vi1989

Ascending the Peetham

In September 1989 Jagadguru Sri Abhinava Vidyatirtha Mahaswamiji attained Mahasamadhi. On Ashwayuja Krishna Panchami of the Shukla Samvatsara — 19 October 1989 — Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji ascended the Vyakhyana Simhasana, the seat of exposition, as the thirty-sixth Jagadguru of the Sringeri Sharada Peetham.

With the seat came its responsibilities: the daily worship of Sri Chandramouleeshwara and Sri Sharadamba, the stewardship of the Peetham’s temples, schools and charitable work, the guidance of its disciples, and the preservation of the teaching he had received. His Guru’s shrine — the Adhishtanam at Narasimhavanam, across the Tunga — was consecrated with a Kumbhabhisheka under his direction on 12 May 1993.

Chapter vii1990s

Leadership of Sringeri

The early years of his leadership brought visible change. On 21 May 1990 he inaugurated the bridge across the Tunga linking the Peetham with Narasimhavanam and named it Vidyatirtha Sethu after his Guru. In 1992 he founded the Shastra Poshaka Sabha to support students of the Shastras, and on 13 January 1992 he laid the foundation stone of the Sanskrit campus at Sringeri — now the Sri Rajiv Gandhi Campus of the Central Sanskrit University — in the presence of the then President of India, R. Venkataraman.

  • 1999A golden chariot dedicated to Goddess Sharada.
  • 2001Inauguration of the Sri Shankara Advaita Research Centre.
  • 2004The Peetham’s website, sringeri.net, inaugurated by him on Vyasa Puja day.
  • 1992–2013Vijaya Yatras as Jagadguru, including those of 1992, 1994–95, 2007, 2010 and 2012–13.

More on the institutions he established or strengthened appears in Education & Seva.

Chapter viii2015

Initiating a successor

In early 2009 a young Vedic student from Tirupati, Kuppa Venkateshwara Prasada Sharma, born on 24 July 1993 and trained in the Krishna Yajur Veda by his father and grandfather, sought refuge with the Jagadguru at Sringeri. The Jagadguru taught him the Shastras personally. On 23 January 2015 he initiated him into Sannyasa, named him Sri Vidhushekhara Bharati, and declared him Uttaradhikari — successor-designate — continuing the pattern by which he himself had been prepared.

Since then the two Acharyas have often appeared together, the senior blessing and the junior increasingly sharing the work of teaching and travel. In 2017 they undertook a four-month Vijaya Yatra through southern India.

Chapter ix2023–25

Suvarna Bharati and Vajrotsava Bharati

The fiftieth year of his Sannyasa began on 10 November 2023 and was celebrated as Suvarna Bharati. At Sringeri the opening included an Ati Rudra Mahayaga and a Sahasra Chandi Mahayaga, and the unveiling of a 32-foot granite image of Adi Shankaracharya on a hillock named Shankara Giri — a project undertaken at the Jagadguru’s resolve, with images of Shankara’s four disciples and of Sri Vidyaranya.

The jubilee year that followed combined learning and service: assemblies of Vedic and Shastric scholars, a Chaturveda Parayana and Shastra Sadas held in Jammu and Kashmir, monthly Vidwat Sabhas at Tirupati and Varanasi, and, according to the Peetham, service initiatives that reached more than ten lakh people. It was followed by Vajrotsava Bharati, marking his seventy-fifth Vardhanti, celebrated at Sringeri from 30 March to 11 April 2025.

These celebrations are described further on Events & Observances.

Chapter xToday

Continuing spiritual work

The rhythm of the Jagadguru’s life continues to follow the calendar of the Peetham. In 2026 he observed his fifty-second Chaturmasya at Sringeri, from Vyasa Puja on 29 July to 26 September. Worship, study, the guidance of seekers, and the care of the Peetham’s scholarly and charitable institutions remain, as they have been for more than half a century, the substance of his days.

Sources: the biography and event reports of Sri Sringeri Sharada Peetham (sringeri.net) and, for the first lesson, Hinduism Today (2011).