Ancient history of Nagulwaram
In the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, in Guntur district, Vinukonda taluk, is a small village called Nagulavaram. This place has an ancient history. Thousands of years ago, the illustrious and righteous King Parikṣit, of the Pāṇḍava dynasty, ruled India. In a moment of weakness, he once insulted a sage called Śamīka. The sages son, Śṛṅgi, cursed the king to die within seven days from the bite of a snake. Parikṣit realized his mistake, since there was no sin greater than insulting a sage of the stature of Śamīka.
Faced with his impending death, the king was filled with renunciation. He left his family and kingdom and went to the forest in the refuge of Sage Śuka, who preached the Holy Bhāgavatam to him. The news of the imminent death of Parikṣit sent tremors among the wise ones. The great sage, Kaṣyapa, rushed to the rescue of the king. In the meanwhile Takṣaka, the serpent king was dispatched by the heavenly executives to deliver the fatal bite to Parikṣit and fulfill the curse of Śṛṅgi.
Takṣaka, knew that he would be unable to kill the king if Sage Kaśyapa were protecting him. He made up his mind to seek blessings of success from the sage and dissuade him from protecting the king. He met the sage in what is now the village of Nagulvaram. In the past, this village was the abode of snakes. Takṣaka respectfully received Sage Kaśyapa and gave a cow in donation to him. He requested the great sage to desist from protecting King Parikṣit. The king had committed a sin and Śṛṅgis cursed had to be fulfilled otherwise it would be a violation of the Law of Dharma (justice). Sage Kaśyapa finally agreed with Takṣaka. He blessed Takṣaka and went his way.
King Parikṣit was immersed in the devotion of the Lord by listening to the Holy Bhāgavatam preached by Śuka. He had given up all his worldly attachments. When Takṣaka came to deliver the fatal bite, Parikṣit was prepared. He attained salvation.

The eighth child
When Hanumayamma was pregnant with the eighth child in the extended family of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry there was a lot of anxiety for the survival of the infant. On Sunday, phalguna shukla vidiya, in the early hours of the 4th part of uttarabhadra, makara lagna, vyaya year, the Child of Veerabhadra Shastry and Hanumayamma was born. The Child was a boy. As soon as He was born, the two evil sorcerers, who had tried to destroy the family of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry, died all of a sudden. The two sorcerers were paternal uncles of the newborn Child. With their death, the evil influence on the family and the entire village ended. The Child was not christened (nāmakaraṇa) till the age of 7 years because the family was still afraid that the Child may not survive; the earlier seven children had died only after they were christened. Little did the family know that this boy was none other than the Lord Himself and that He would be known as Swāmi (master) or Datta Swāmi in the future. There are several parallels between the life of Lord Kṛṣṇa and Swāmi. Lord Kṛṣṇa was the eighth child of his parents. Swāmi was the eighth child in His family. Lord Kṛṣṇas maternal uncle was a very cruel king and had killed the elder siblings of Lord Kṛṣṇa along with innumerable innocent people. In Swāmis case, it was His two paternal uncles who were cruel and they killed Swāmis elder siblings and cousins apart from hundreds of other villagers. Owing to the similarities between Lord Kṛṣṇa, and Swāmi, His paternal aunt named him as Venugopala Krishna.

Early Life
As Swāmi, grew up to be a young boy, He brought life and enthusiasm in His family and the whole village. His enchanting pranks at once entertained and exasperated His parents. His mischief was very similar to that of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Swāmi too was fond of butter and curd. He too would collect a band of village kids and sneak into neighbors homes to steal butter and curd. His whole day would be spent in playing with His band of friends, teasing villagers and breaking pots. His friends adored Him and considered Him as their leader. Inspite of His incessant mischief, He was the heart-throb of the entire village. Occasionally, some villager would complain to Swāmis parents about His being a perfect menace. But on the whole they tolerated and evn enjoyed His pranks.
Another reason why the villagers tolerated Swāmis mischief was that Swāmis family was greatly respected in the village. Their ancestors were landlords in the village. The elder brother of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry, (Swāmis paternal uncle) was an Ayurvedic doctor and a very generous and compassionate man. He would treat many poor villagers free of charge. He was almost like a village headman to them. Any new person visiting the village was automatically a respected guest of Swāmis family. Therefore the villagers did not mind if a little boy from that family did some mischief at their expense.
When Swāmi turned seven, just a few days after His christening ceremony (nāmakaraṇa), His father decided that it was about time that his son got a little serious. With a view to reduce the mischief of Swāmi and instill some discipline in Him, His father performed the upanayanam ceremony for Swāmi. The upanayanam is the initiation of a child into the traditional study of the scriptures. A large ceremony was performed and food was distributed to the entire village. After the upanayanam, Swāmis father started teaching Sanskrit to Swāmi. He started by teaching eight verses from the epic, Raghuvaṁśa of Kālidāsa. But from the ninth verse onwards, Swāmi started revealing the meanings of Sanskrit verses without any further teaching. This happened when Swāmi was seven years of age. The father was taken aback by the extraordinary talent of his seven-year-old son. However he was worried and thought that Swāmi was possessed by a Brahma Rākṣasa, a ghost of a scholarly demon, and as a result Swāmi could suddenly expound the Sanskrit epic without any prior study. His father performed several rituals and the chanting of mantras (sacred hymns) so that Swāmi may get rid of the Brahma Rākṣasa. He had no idea of the divinity of his son. When Swāmi related this to His devotees, many years later, He jokingly said that His father did not know which ghost had possessed Him. Swāmi said that He was possessed by Lord Datta, whose original form is described as that of a ghost called Avadhūta Datta Digaṁbara Piśācha Rūpa. Lord Datta in this form is Lord Śiva, who is the ruler of all ghosts.
Thereafter, Swāmi began composing shlokas (verses) in Sanskrit on His own. The ancient and intricate Sanskrit language gushed forth from Swāmis pen. Swāmi started writing poems, epics, stotrams (paeans) and philosophical books in hundreds. Sanskrit scholars were dumbfounded seeing the compositions of Swāmi when He was barely eleven years old. Great scholars like Sri M. Satyanarayana Sastry and Sri Tatacharya compared the works of Swāmi to those of the legendary Kalidasa.
Sri Vavilala Venkateswara Sastry, a great philosopher, appreciated Swāmi extensively. Sri. D. Prabhakara Sastry and Sri. J. Venkateswara Sastry recognized that Swāmis genius was out of the ordinary. They realized that it was not genius but it was Divinity.
At the age of ten, Swāmi used to tell the future. Initially, people thought that He must have inherited some of His fathers astrological skills. However two incidents convinced people of Swāmis divinity rather than astrological skills. Once when Swāmi was present by His fathers side, a farmer from the neighboring village of Kookatlapally, came to them and invited them to his daughters wedding. Swāmi suddenly said that the bride would die immediately after the wedding. Everyone in Swāmis family was shocked. They scolded Swāmi for making such an outrageous statement. The farmer, who had come to invite them, was speechless. Yet he proceeded with the wedding of his daughter. After the wedding was over and when the bride prostrated before her in-laws, to receive their blessings, as per the tradition, she immediately fell down dead. This incident became the talk of the town.
Another incident took place when Swāmi went to visit His uncle in Kundurti. In His uncles house, Swāmi took a diary and wrote that His aunt would pass away due to cholera on a particular date. He signed the same with the date of prediction. His uncle did not see it and came to know of it later on. On the predicted day, His aunt died of cholera.
Swāmi was exceptionally brilliant in His studies. He completed His bachelors degree at the age of sixteen and proceeded to the prestigious Allahabad University for His masters and PhD. During His five-year stay in Allahabad, He would wake up at 3.00 am every morning and walk to the holy river, Gaṅgā (Ganges) to perform severe penance. He would first bathe in the holy waters. Then He would make a mud idol in the form of a Śiva Liṅgam, hold it in His left hand and shower it with the holy water of the Gaṅgā with the right hand. This, He would do standing on one leg till 7.00 am. At the end of it, Swāmi would immerse the mud idol in the river and proceed to the university to attend classes and do His research. Every full moon day (pourṇimā), Swāmi would go to the holy city of Varanasi (Benaras) which is just a few hours away from Allahabad. There, He would worship Lord Śiva by performing the Rudrābhiśekam.
By the age of seventeen, Swāmi had completed His Masters degree in chemistry. He continued working towards a PhD. Swāmi worked in the laboratory for His PhD for only thirty days and completed His thesis in a few months after joining the PhD program. His thesis was titled A New Supersonic Technique for Metallurgical Testing. It was a very short thesis and contained only thirty pages. Swāmi was inspired by Newton and Einstein, whose ground breaking theses in their time, were very short. Swāmi did not want to submit a watered down thesis running into hundreds of pages; He rather wanted a short, power-packed thesis with an original idea. His professors were extremely impressed with Swāmis thesis, His original work, and His brilliance as a researcher. However they could not accept His thesis so soon. The university had a rule that the minimum time frame for the completion of a PhD degree should be twenty months. Swāmi was obliged to wait for that period before He could submit His thesis.
Swāmi spent this time, enacting another divine drama in His this world. It was a particularly important phase of His life from the point of view of His Divine Mission on earth. He would go to the university every morning but not to the chemistry department; He would go to the G. M. Jha Research Institute, which was on campus. In this famous institute there are hundreds of thousands of original palm-leaf manuscripts of ancient philosophical texts including the Vedas, Brahmasūtras, Bhagavad Gita and commentaries of great ancient masters on the scriptures. Swāmi would study them all day. His colleagues in the chemistry department would joke that His admission to the chemistry department was a mere formality; He was always to be found in the G. M. Jha Research Institute. They would add that Swāmi was not a research scholar in chemistry but a scholar in Sanskrit and philosophy.
The director of the institute was Dr. Umesh Mishra, a great scholar and a spiritually advanced soul. He was ex-vice chancellor of Sanskrit University of Darbhanga. He was a pūrva mīmāṁsaka (ritualist) by belief. He had once performed the aśwamedha yaja (fire ritual involving a divine horse) in Darbhanga. During the ritual a divine horse appeared in the fire altar. Dr. Mishra was able to take a photograph of the horse. While studying the ancient manuscripts in the G. M. Jha Institute, Swāmi would get into scholarly spiritual debates with Dr. Mishra. These debates were a recapitulation of the same great debate that had ensued between Lord Ādi Śaṅkarācārya and the great ritualistic scholar Maṇḍana Miśra. Lord Śaṅkaras point of view was theistic and consisted in accepting God as the Creator and Controller of creation. Maṇḍāna Miśras point of view was that human effort and actions yield commensurate results independently; there was no need to bring God into the picture. The historic debate had lasted twenty one days and finally Maṇḍana Miśra accepted Lord Śaṅkaraa point of view. He totally surrendered to Lord Śaṅkara and became His famous disciple, who later became known as Sureśwara. Likewise, in the debate between Swāmi and Dr. Mishra, Dr. Mishra finally accepted Swāmis point of view. He even gave a certificate signed by him to Swāmi, accepting that Swāmis point was correct.
During His stay in Allahabad, Swāmi would also engage in debates and discussions with many other great scholars. There is a reputed Vedantic philosophical magazine published in Varanasi, called Prabha. Swāmi wrote and article in it on the commentary of a particular Brahmasūtra. The Brahmasūtras are condensed aphorisms which contain the entire Vedic knowledge in them. However interpreting and understanding the Brahma Sutras is very difficult since it requires a comprehensive and fully assimilated knowledge of the entire Vedas. Only the most advanced students of Vedanta are able to study the Brahmasūtras. Swāmi wrote the article on the Brahmasūtras (1.1.4), tat tu samanvayāt. He gave one hundred interpretations of the term tu. His article was so exceptional that it transcended the level of usual scholarly Vedantic writing. Impressed by this article, Sri Karapatra Swāmi, the head monk-teacher (Pīṭhādhipati) of the sacred seat of learning at Varanasi (Kāśī Pīṭham), invited the young Swāmi to take up monkhood (saṁnyāsa) and become the next head monk-teacher (Pīṭhādhipati) of Kāśī Pīṭham. Varanasi is the holiest city of the Hindus. It is where the scriptures are taught, preserved and propagated from generation to generation for several thousand years. It is the abode of the greatest scholars and saints in India. Becoming the head monk of this ancient and sacred seat of learning, is an extremely rare and prestigious position. Swāmi was offered this position, when He was not even out of His teens. However, when His father came to know about this, he did not accept the offer. Swāmi was his eldest son. He was not going to let his eldest son become a monk. He wanted Swāmi to carry on the name of his family. It is indeed our good fortune that Swāmi did not take the offer at that time. Otherwise we would not have had the opportunity to know Him so closely and live with Him.
In India, a sacred event called the Mahākumbha Mela is celebrated at certain holy places. It is an event with astronomical significance and it occurs every 12 years. At this time, over a million people congregate at these holy spots to have a ritual bath in the holy waters. It is also the time when great scholars, sages and holy men come out of seclusion and interact with each other. Rare jewels of Divine Knowledge are exchanged. At the time of the Mahākumbha Mela in Prayāg (Allahabad), situated on the confluence of the three holy rivers, Gangā, Yamunā and the Saraswatī, a heated argument took place between the followers of Ārya Samāj and those of Sanātana Dharma. Both are sects of Hinduism. Ārya Samāj believes in Formless God (Nirākāra) whereas the Sanātanas believe in God having form (Sākāra) and God coming down as a human incarnation (Narāvatāra). At the age of 16, Swāmi entered the debate on the side of the Sanātanas. He argued with the great scholars of Ārya Samāj in Sanskrit. Following is an excerpt from that argument: