Chakradhar Swami

Sarvadnya Shri Chakradhar Swami - indian philosopher, Founder of Mahanubhava Sect in Vaishnavism in 1267. Chakradhar Swami accepted Maharashtra as His karmabhoomi as this place had adhikaari purush that time. Hence Maharashtra has many teertha sthaan (holy places) of Mahanubhav Pantha. Chakradhar propagated a religious movement as well as social movement, in which all were accepted irrespective of their castes and the traditional ritualistic religion was rejected. Chakradhar swami was born in a Samvedi Lad brahmin family in Bhadoch

Chakradhar Swami was born at Bharavas (Bhadoch) as the son of a minister named Vishaldeva & Malani devi and his ancestral name was Haripaldeva. There goes a legend that Haripaldeva suddenly died at the age of twenty but a holy saint named Changdev Raul (Shri Chakrapani Prabhu) from Phalatan entered the dead body of Haripaldeva after which he revived. The reborn Haripaldeva greatly changed. Feeling disgusted after conflict with wife, he left home by telling that he was going for Ram yatra . Then he came to place Ridhapur where Govind Prabhu regarded as incarnation. After having wandered alone for time, he appeared among the people. He then went to Paithan and offered his grace to an old women Nagambika alias Nagaisa.A year after this he preached to Nagdev & made him his disciple. Seven & half years of his lonely wanderings, he visited a number of villages in Marathwada, Varadh, Khandesh & many different parts of Maharashtra preaching his philosophy to common man in Marathi with the help of illustration & imagery. During this period of propagation of his philosophy about five hundred followers from learned Brahmin & Non Brahmin castes joined him. On the basis of some lila (deeds) mention in the life of Chakradhar Swami, it is opined that he was beheaded by the Yadava rulers. There may be some truth in this because in those days, the religion of Vedas propounding Varna differences & worship of multiple deities was so rampant that the learned authority of the religion must have opposed the propagator of a new sect. Actually many distinguished people from the court of Yadavas like Bhandari Gadonayak and Gopal Pandit who were senior administrators;Kamaisa of Ramdevaraya and Demati of Hemadpandit who were wives of courtly people;Ganpati Apayo,Pimple Vaman Bhatt and Gunakardeva Prajnasagar who were Vedic scholar become follower of Shri Chakradhar Swami.

Shri Chakradhar Swami propounded his philosophy like Shri Krishna from among the “ Five Krishnas”.Although he was a Gujarati by birth,he had excellent command of the Marathi language.He moved among the all sections of society.He discoursed his philosophy extremely effectively among the people in their own language. He used formulaic language full of meaning in a compact style.

One of the most important aspects of the philosophy propounded by him is asceticism. The philosophy of Shri Chakradhar Swami advocated the bhakti mode as well as an austere code of conduct.This influence the literature of Mahanubhavas.A work like Lilacharitra was composed by Mahimbhatta,a disciple of Shri Chakradhar Swami.He met a large number of people who had been in contact with Shri Chakradhar Swami,collected the reliable information about his deeds & verified it with Nagadevacharya and finally put it into a massive prose biographical text.

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