[Advaita-l] An exalted personality

[V Subrahmanian]

T.K. Balasubrahmanya Iyer makes a mention of Sridhara Venkatesa Dikshitar
(Ayyaavaal) as a contemporary of Sadasiva Brahmendra in a Brahmasutra-vrtti
edited by him-

"It was at Tiruvisainallur, a village in the Tanjore district, on the banks
of the sacred stream Kaveri, embowered among groves of mangoes and
coconuts, that Sadasivendra Sarasvati's student days were cast. This
village was at the time peculiarly blessed in her teachers and pupils.
There was Ramabhadra Diksitar, a scholar of no mean repute and the famous
author of the drama- the Janaki Parinaya; there was also Sri Venkatesa, yet
in his teens with all those potentialities in him which were to ripen in
the fullness of time and make him a heart-stirring preacher and writer,
those noble life and fervid words have earned for him the undying glory of
the Saint Divine, whose Akhyasasti, Dayasataka and other works have an
earnestness and a pathos rarely met with elsewhere and whose name under the
more respected and familiar title of Ayyaval, is invoked even this day by
hundreds of devotees  in Southern India with grateful strains and uplifted
hands ;  there was Gopalakrsna, also a student, who came to be known as
Mahabhasyam  Gopalakrsna  Sastri , so styled because of his learned
commentary on the Patanjali's  Mahabhasya and who was afterwards to become
the spiritual preceptor of the Tondamans of Pudukota; and there was
Sadasivendra Sarasvati , the subject of our sketch, a student  yet, the
most gifted of a gifted set, the most brilliant of  a glorious  band of
students, each of whom was afterwards to leave his mark on the earth-' foot
prints on the sands of time' - that have been a guide and an inspiration to
many a forlorn heart."

Reference: A short sketch of Sadasiva Brahman written by T.K.
Balasubrahmanya Iyer in Brahmasutra Vrtti of Sri Sadasivendra Sarasvati
published by Sri Vani Vilas Press, Srirangam.