Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji

Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swamiji is a senior monk of the Tenkalai Srivaishnava tradition, which traces its teachings to the philosopher Ramanujacharya. He was named for the Padma Bhushan in 2023, from Telangana ^[1].

Training and vows

He was born on 3 November 1956 in Andhra Pradesh ^[2]. He was inspired by Pedda Jeeyar Swamiji, a freedom fighter who had become a monk, and studied under the scholar T. K. Gopalacharya Swami ^[2]. He took monastic vows in 1980, at 23, and went on to carry the lineage’s work to other countries ^[2].

Teaching

His organisations run a Vedic university that combines traditional oral teaching with modern education, and work on digitising and researching Vedic texts and restoring old temples ^[2]. He gives discourses on the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Divya Prabandham and Vedanta on television and other media ^[2]. The Statue of Equality in Hyderabad, a monument to Ramanujacharya’s idea that all souls are equal, was inaugurated in 2022 ^[2].

Service work

Through a service wing called Vikasa Tarangini, his volunteers have brought relief after cyclones, earthquakes and the tsunami, in places including Gujarat and Nepal, and after the Kargil war ^[2]. Its medical wing gave free health services during the Covid-19 pandemic, and since 2010 it has offered free cervical and breast cancer screening to about 1.9 million women, with counselling and free treatment by volunteer doctors for those found to have the disease ^[2]. The Jeeyar Educational Trust runs free, computer-aided schools for visually impaired children and for children in remote tribal areas ^[2].