acharyas/vidyananda.jpg · 1000×1250Born Surendra Upadhye on 22 April 1925 at Shedbal in Belagavi district, Karnataka, he took kshullak diksha in 1946 from Acharya Mahavirakirti. On 25 July 1963 in Delhi he received muni diksha from Acharya Deshbhushan as Muni Vidyananda. A learned speaker in Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit and Prakrit, he drew large audiences in North India. In 1974 he was a guiding figure of the nationwide 2500th Nirvana Mahotsav of Mahavira, and he is credited with giving the Jain community its five-coloured flag.
His guru gave him the titles of Upadhyaya (1974) and Elacharya (1978), and on 28 June 1987 made him acharya in Delhi. In 1979 he received the title Siddhanta Chakravarti. He founded Kundakunda Bharati in New Delhi, a centre for Prakrit and Jain studies, and encouraged the study of Acharya Kundakunda's works. After taking sallekhana, he attained samadhi there on 22 September 2019, aged 94. In 2025 India issued a coin marking his birth centenary.
