SWAMI SRI VEERABRAHMENDRA

A Monograph on Pothuluru Veerabrahmendra Swamy

To depend totally on a book of this nature for historical data of the Swami may not be much desi¬rable, as the very attempt may drown us in an ocean of mythology. Further, the names of the persons and places mentioned in this book give reason to doubt whether such persons and places did exist at all. For example: Prakrit(y)amba and Brahmapuri. Prakrit(y)amba does not seem to be native name of a Telugu woman. Even Brahmapuri does not, at present, correspond to any place in the map of India. Similarly ‘Atri’ is not the same Sage who could be identified with the Sage, in the Saptarshi Mandala of the constellation.

Although these names do not correspond to his¬torical or mythological names, the traditional scholars like M. Kodandarama Reddi (whose articles on ‘‘Veera-brahmam a Revolutionary Saint” were serialized in Prabha Sunday issue in Dec. 1974) lay stress that there lived a Viswabrahmin couple, Prakrit(y)amba and Paripoornayacharyulu to whom was born Veerabrahmam, the great revolutionary saint. Perhaps, the names Prakrit(y)amba and Paripoornayacharya, the scholar adds, might stand for the Sankhya terminology of Prakriti and Purusha and their original names might not be known to us. The couple were unhappy, for they had no children. They set out on a pilgrimage to North India and while going about, Prakrit(y)amba became pregnant. On rea¬ching the banks of the river Saraswati (This river is not the mythological river Saraswati which disappeared in the deserts of Rajasthan long ago) where one Atrimuni had his hermitage, Prakrit(y)amba was delivered of a male child, immediately after the birth of the child the parents breathed their last, leaving the child to the care of Atrimuni.

The various names by which the boy was called, do not resemble those which are popular in North India. The scholar Kodandarama Reddi, therefore, is of the opinion that the boy must have been brought up in South India after having been adopted by Papamamba and Veerabhojayacharya, the Viswabrahmin couple of papaghni mutt in South India. This couple too who had no children went to North India on a pilgrimage visiting the holy temples. On their way, they visited the hermitage of Atrimuni, who gave Veerambhotlayya or adopting by them. On reaching home, along with their adopted son, the couple per¬formed his thread marriage at the age of five and made him learn the Vedas and Sastras. The boy learnt in no time the ares of sculpture blacksmithy etc. the professional craft of Viswakarmans.

Here the scholar throws light on the topographical details of Papaghni Peetham - the residential place of the Viswabrahmin couple, Papamamba and Veerabhoja¬yacharya. Some scholar’s that the Papaghni Peetham was in the Nandi durga (the popular Nandi Hills) of Karnataka Stats. But Kodandarama Reddi says that Nandidurga may perhaps be the same Nandi¬kontia which was inundated in the waters of the present Nagarjuna sagar of Andhra Pradesh.