Seeing as a number of us on this list have worked on the figure of Vyāsatīrtha (Vyāsarāya), an important sixteenth-century scholar-saint of the Mādhva Vedānta tradition, and have worked closely with scholars associated with the Vyāsarāya maṭha, I wanted to convey news of the shocking vandalism of the Vyāsarāya vrindavan in Anegundi near Hampi: 

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/treasure-hunters-vandalise-brindavan-of-saint-vyasaraja-near-hampi-on-lunar-eclipse-day/article28543008.ece

The current head of the matha system, Shri Vidyashreesha (in his pūrvāśrama, the esteemed scholar of navyanyāya, Dr. Prahladacarya) has issued a statement here and has urged calm: 

https://twitter.com/ShreeshaTirtha/status/1151718044600692736?s=08

Predictably, some in high positions of civil service have jumped to wildly speculative, historically uninformed, and antagonistic conclusions: 

https://twitter.com/Tejasvi_Surya/status/1151772706632679425?s=19


Jonathan Peterson
Department for the Study of Religion
Centre for South Asian Studies
University of Toronto