Sringeri Sharadamba Temple

The Sri Sharadamba Temple stands in Sringeri in Karnataka, on the banks of the Tunga river, and is dedicated to Sharadamba, the local form of Saraswati, goddess of learning.

Tradition holds that Adi Shankara founded the shrine in the eighth century and built beside it his first monastery, the Sringeri Sharada Peetham, the southern of the four cardinal mathas he established across India, with his disciple Sureshvaracharya as its first pontiff.

The matha preserved Sanskrit manuscripts and Advaita Vedanta scholarship through an unbroken line of Jagadgurus. In 1791, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Pindari raiders sacked and destroyed the temple; Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore, wrote letters of condolence to the Shankaracharya and sent money, gifts and armed protection so that the shrine could be rebuilt.