UDUPI: Sri Vishwaprasanna Theertha Swamiji of Sri Pejavar Matha, Udupi, received the prestigious Padma Vibhushan award, announced for his senior Sri Vishwesha Theertha Swamiji, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday.
The video in which Sri Vishwaprasanna Theertha Swamiji is seen receiving the award has been widely circulated on social media.
Sri Vishwesha Theertha Swamiji passed away on December 29, 2019. The 88-year-old was conferred the Padma Vibhushan award posthumously for his service in the field of spiritualism.
The seer was born on April 27, 1931, the second child of Sri Narayanacharya and Srimati Kamalamma, a devout couple from Ramakunja in a Madhwa-Shivalli Brahmin family. His pre-sannyasa name was Venkatrama. He was ordained with sainthood at the age of eight and transformed himself into a knowledgeable and erudite scholar of Vedanta and the Shastras.
The Swamiji ascended the paryaya peeta in 1954 for the first time and his historic fifth paryaya was in January 18, 2016. The seer ran many schools and colleges in Udupi and across the state. Sri Vishwesha Theertha was against the practice of untouchability. He had taken a lead role in organizing ‘Dharma Sansad’ in Udupi in 2017.