SWAMI SRI VEERABRAHMENDRA

A Monograph on Pothuluru Veerabrahmendra Swamy

The Date of Veerabrahmam

Any biographer can pick up his strings only when he is able to know clealy such details as place of birth, date of birth, family name, father’s name and mother’s name of the person and the object of the study. Unfortunately, most of these details still remain unknown to a good number of biographers of Veerabrahmam. The place of his birth is not clearly known, since his mother Prakritamba gave birth to him in the hermitage of Atrimuni on the banks of the river Saraswati in North India. The very identity of Atrimuni still poses a problem to us. But as for his surname, it is identified with one village named ‘‘Potuluru” in Kurnool district. Normally the surnames are derived from village names which continue their attachment even after the persons permanently leave that village. Dr. K. Rajamallachari who took doctorate degree on Veerabrahmam’s life and works confirms that the house name of the Swami was derived from Potuluru village in Kurnool district. But the names of his father and mother “Paripoornayacharya and Prakritamba” seem to be symbolic of Sankhya terminology and the original names are yet to be detected.

Now turning to the date of birth, one has to rely completely either on the internal evidence of Veerabramam’s Kalajnanam or on the external evidence of stray episodes narrated by experienced old people,

The trouble always stems from the conventional belief of our people who do not distinguish history from mythology. I shall cite one example. The palm leaf manuscript of Veerabrahmam’s Kalajnana is said to have been kept in the inner pit of Banaganapalle mutt under a tamarind sprout which has grown into a big tree now, The age of this tree is believed to be about 700 years which means Veerabrahmam must have lived some 700 years ago in which case he must have been a contemporary of Tikkana, the famous Telugu poet. The unconvincing part of this episode is the superstitious belief that the exact age of the tree is 700 years. Why not it be 300 years or even less than that ?

One of the predictions of Kalajnana is that in Macherla all the kings will have miserable death in the hands of an amorous woman (Madavati). This is evidently an allusion to the battle of Palnad and Nagamma at whose hands most of the kings of Palnad had a miserable death. The battle of Palnad took place sometime in the e3riy eighties of 12th century. Brahmam, then, must have lived earlier than the 12th century. A prediction could be meaningful only when it foretells the future events.

Another Kalajnana reads that Brahmam is going to be born as Veerabhoga Vasantaraya, in the Kali era of 500 years, which corresponds to the Christian era of 1900. The Swami’s devotees of 20th Century are eagerly waiting for the incarnation of this Veerabhoga Vasantaraya, the prospects of which seem to be quite remote.