Sāyaṇācārya is a unique personality in India's history, and as equally unique as his older brother Mādhavācārya, who was better known as Svāmī Vidyāraṇya of the famous Śṛṅgerī Maṭha. These brothers, who lived in the 14th century CE, together can very aptly be called India's Yuga Puruṣas (millenial men) of the last 1000 years - such is the significance and force of their life's work.
The all-roundedness of their multifaceted contribution to India's cultural, religious, social, political, geographical and civilizational continuity is unmatched in the entire history of India considering the extremely adverse and hostile situation of their era.
If we were to look back at India's long and ancient history, we would find probably one or two other such gigantic personalities who can lay claim to the title of Yuga Puruṣa. One is Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva from the 2nd millenium BCE, and the other is Kauṭilya Cāṇakya from the 1st millenium BCE. Both these men are well-known for their multifaceted contribution to India's civilization. However, I dare say that the difficulties and adversities faced by these two men are trivial in comparison to those faced by Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya.
From ancient times down to the 1st millenium CE, India was at the peak of its civilizational glory. Its borders were secure, its economy prosperous, its culture vibrant and flourishing, its philosophical and spiritual traditions shining like a beacon of enlightenment for the whole world. Its ancient universities were thronged by foreign students from far and wide, just as students today throng to the American universities.
The obstacles that Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva overcame in his time were largely internal and benign to India's civilization. The obstacles that Kauṭilya Cāṇakya overcame in his time were foreign, but they were so minor in comparison to the strength and solidarity still pervasive in the civilization of the time.
The obstacles that Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya faced in their time were foreign and brutal, of monstrous and barbaric proportions never before seen in India's long civilization. These obstacles were of the character of ferocious and unrelenting attack by the armies of Muslim invaders who were having a field day, easily destroying Hindu kingdoms and decimating India's glorious civilization.
At such a weakened, chaotic and calamitous time, Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya were pivotal in organizing and guiding a powerful resistance to the advance of Islam in southern India. The final form of this resistance is very well-known as the Vijayanagara empire, which flourished under the dharmarājya of kings Harihara and Bukkarāya at its inception, and then later by their equally capable brothers Kampaṇa, Muddappa and Mārappa, as well as the second generation king Kumāra Kampaṇa who freed the Tamil country from brutal Muslim rule (the contemporaneous account of the liberation of Madurai is the Sanskrit work Madhurāvijayam written by his queen Gaṅgādevī). I shall not dwell too much into the glories of the Vijayanagara empire, as it has already been admirably and famously described by foreign travelers of the era and by later historians and history buffs. In summary, the Vijayanagara empire brought back the ancient glory of Indian Hindu civilization and preserved Hinduism in south India in a time of ferocious and predatory Islamic invasions in the rest of India.
One important point to note is that the founding kings of Vijayanagara, Harihara and Bukkarāya, whom Svāmī Vidyāraṇya consulted with and chose to lead the new kingdom, were neither Brahmins nor Kshatriyas. They were from the caste of Kannada Vokkaligas, traditionally Kurubas, or shepherds. This is very significant for the present-day social justice warriors to remember when they incessantly and ignorantly rant about the oppression of the caste system. To Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya, who were Brahmins by birth, no other two people were more capable than Harihara and Bukkarāya to lead this new Hindu kingdom. This also has exact parallels with Kauṭilya Cāṇakya choosing the "low caste" Candragupta Maurya to be the king. So much for caste discrimination!
The achievements of the Vijayanagara empire are unmatched by any other medieval kingdom, be it the Maratha empire or the Sikh empire. The reason is that in the 14th century, the Hindu kingdoms were still shell-shocked by the brutality and ferocity of the Muslim invasions, and were utterly scattered and clueless as to how to re-organize themselves and stay alive, much less put up a fight. One after another, the Hindu kingdoms were falling like flies in the face of the Muslim invasions. At such a time, the Vijayanagara empire is truly a visionary and courageous idea that was never tried before in India's history. The crux of this idea was to unite all the fallen and weak kingdoms under the umbrella of the Vijayanagara rule so that a single combined effort would potentially be able to resist the invasions and sustain Hindu civilization. The founding team of the Vijayanagara empire were the first to recognize the threat of Islamic imperialism to Hindu civilization and respond in a systematic, strategic and intelligent manner. So the founders of the Vijayanagara empire were true pioneers of their time.
It is highly regrettable that today's Indian leaders have forgotten the lessons from Vijayanagara, just as the kings of early centuries CE forgot the lessons from Kauṭilya Cāṇakya. It is also regrettable that the leaders of India's freedom movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries did not have the same wholistic integral Vedic vision of Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya.
After 350 years of glorious rule, when the Vijayanagara empire also collapsed due to several reasons, in the 17th century, its political, administrative and military organization was an inspiration for the great Shivaji in his establishment of the Maratha empire.
Thus was the inimitable and unreplicable contribution of Sāyaṇa and Vidyāraṇya to the resurgence and revival of India's native civilization through pioneering work in the arena of politics, administration and statesmanship.
Even more remarkable is the fact that after devoting their most energetic and youthful decades to the materialistic well-being of Hindu civilization, the two brothers went on to make seminal contributions to the spiritual well-being of Hindu civilization --
Svāmī Vidyāraṇya became the pontiff of the Śṛṅgerī Maṭha that was established by the Ādi Śaṅkarācārya in the 7th century CE. Under his leadership, the monastery started keeping accurate historical records that have been indispensable for understanding the history of not only the monastery but also the social and political climate through the centuries. Further, he authored several highly regarded and authoritative works on Advaita philosophy. The most famous work, the Pañcadaśī, is a very unique treatise that explains Advaita through the medium of worldly areas of interest such as painting, music, dance and drama. This is, again in his own style, inimitable because the typical saṃnyāsī is advised or is under the impression that monkhood means the complete renunciation of, and aversion to, worldly matters. Whereas the true saṃnyāsī is enlightened to see the whole world through Advaita.
Sāyaṇācārya contributed in another crucial area of spirituality and religion, the Vedas. We shall take a deeper look into this in Part 2.
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