Vidyaranya
Hindu Jagadguru
Vidyaranya (IAST: Vidyāraṇya), was the jagadguru of the Sringeri Sharada Peetham from ca. 1374–1380 until 1386. Vidyāraṇya, who is thought to have been named Madhava before taking ordination as a sannyasin, is usually identified with Mādhavācārya (not to be confused with Madhvāchārya (13th c.)), the supposed author of the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, a compendium of different philosophical schools of Hindu philosophy. According to tradition, after ordination at an old age, Madhava took the name of Vidyaranya, became the Jagadguru of the matha at Sringeri, and wrote the Pañcadaśī, an important text for Advaita Vedanta.
According to tradition, Vidyaranya helped establish the Vijayanagara Empire sometime in 1336, and served as a mentor and guide to three generations of kings who ruled over it. The historical accuracy of this account is doubtful, and may have originated as late as 200 years after the events, as a "political foundation myth, an ideological attempt to represent the authority of the Vijayanagara state as deriving directly from that of the Sultanate."
The Vidyashankara temple in Sringeri is the samadhi of Vidya shankara, the guru of Vidyaranya which was built over the former's samadhi by his disciple Harihara. It is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. Vidyaranya's samadhi is located in Hampi, Karnataka.
Biography
Dating
The dating of Vidyaranya is unclear. According to Jackson, Vidyaranya was born between 1280 and 1285.
“Vidyaranya” enters the record as hindu Jagadguru. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vidyaranya, Hindu and Jagadguru can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2726403. VIAF identifies the subject as 50030906. The Library of Congress control number is n50043724. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1374, 1380, 1386 and 1336.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vidyaranya” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.