First tour of North India
In course of time, the Acharya decided to tour North India in
order to further spread the true message of Vedic religion. He
also wanted to visit Badari to meet shrI VedavyAsa (an
incarnation of Lord Hari) and get His blessings. Accordingly in
1263 he set out with several disciples and reached Badari.
According to the Sumadhva Vijaya, when he presented his Gita
bhAshya to Narayana, He is supposed to have directed him to
change one word from ‘shaktitah’ to ‘leshatah’ (indicating that
the standard of the bhAshya was set to the level of the audience
and not at the Acharya’s level which is much, much higher). He
is also supposed to have woken up Acharya in the night and
directed him to read the Bhashya again.
From there, Acharya made the trek to Upper Badari in 48 days. In
order to keep his mind focused on shrI VedavyAsa, he observed a
vow of silence for the entire duration, bathing in the cold
waters of the Ganga very early in the morning. At the final leg
of the trip, he directed his disciples to stay back and went
alone. However one disciple, shrI Sathya tIrtha followed him for
a while but could not keep up. After a while he became so tired
that he could not move forward or backward. Acharya sensed this
and out of concern for his safety created a fierce wind by
waving his hand; this wind carried Sathya tIrtha safely back to
the previous camp.
Acharya reached upper Badari and saw shrI VedavyAsa. He
prostrated before Him with deep devotion. shrI VedavyAsa was
very happy to see him and greeted him effusively. He then taught
some hidden aspects of the scriptures to Acharya. This was done
to show that true knowledge has to be learnt from a guru and to
underscore the point that Acharya’s knowledge of scriptures was
flawless because this had been imparted to him by the Lord
Himself.
On his way back, Acharya participated in a vidvat sabha on the
banks on the GodAvarI river in the Andhra. The sabha featured
two erudite scholars and staunch advaitins, Shobhana BhaTTa (the
prime minister of the kAkatIya kings) and SvAmI ShAstrI (the
prime minister of the Gajapati kings of kaLinga). Both of them
were defeated and thoroughly mesmerized by Acharya’s magic
personality and erudition. They converted to dvaita and got
initiated into sanyAsa as PadmanAbha and Narahari tIrthas
respectively. Acharya sent Narahari tIrtha back to Kalinga to
obtain the rare and priceless icon of Lord Rama buried in the
treasury. Sri Narahari tIrtha served the kingdom diligently and
received the icon as his reward. He went back to Udupi and
offered this icon to Sri Madhvacharya. This is the famous MUla
RAma icon worshipped in the Raghavendra swamigala maTha.
After his return from Badari AchArya authored a commentary on
the Bramha-sutras.
Acharya's influence spread far and wide throughout the country.
Scholars were stunned by his extra-ordinary genius. The circle
of his disciples grew bigger and bigger. Some even got initiated
into sanyasa