Madhusuudana Sarasvati.

[Giri]

It was early spring of 1537. A boat was crossing the Padma river in East
Bengal, India. In the boat sat a young lad of 12 with his father. The
bright young lad had just dedicated a poem in honor of the local king and
presented it to him. The king however was more concerned with the
impending war and rivalry with his neighbouring kingdom. The lad was hurt
and swore that henceforth he would only sing the praises of God. That lad
was Madhusuudana Sarasvati, who became one of the most famous
philosophers and bhakta-s Bharat Mata had ever produced.
        Shortly thereafter he left home and stayed in Navadwip, where he
learned Nyaya under masters. The religious fervour of love and devotion
fueled by Shri Chaitanya was sweeping the nation, while the philosophy of
Shankara did hold sway. Later, he moved to Kasi (Varanasi, Benares) and
studied vedanta under Ramatirtha. He was convinced of the unity of Atman
and Brahman and wrote 'advaita siddhi' in refutation of vyasaraytirtha's
'nyayaamR^ita'.
        However, he confessed to Ramatirtha that he had learned Vedanta
only to refute various other schools, while he was concerned more about
finding the metaphysical basis for Vaishnavism. To atone for this,
Ramatirtha advised his disciple to take up sanyasa. So the young man went
to the great sanyasi vishveshvara sarasvati and asked for initiation into
sanyas. But vishveshvara told him that this was a momentous decision and
to see whether he was fit to take up the task of sanyas, he had to first
write a commentary on gita and that he would evaluate it after his
pilgrimage. Therefore, the young person started writing a commentary on
bhagvad gita and called it guudhaartha diipika. Later, vishveshvara
was pleased with the commentary and initiated him into the ascetic order and
named him Madhusuudhana sarasvati.

(Ref : I remember reading the above in the book on the translation of bhagvad
gita by sisir kumar gupta and published by Motilal)

**

        Recently, I came across a copy of muktika upanishad, and will post
the 108 upanishad-s mentioned there in SRH shortly.

**