Vallabhacharya was born into a Telugu Brahmin family in South India, to a mother whose own father was a priest in the royal court of the Vijayanagara Empire. Vallabha's family fled Varanasi after they received rumors of an imminent Islamic attack on the city, then spent the early years with baby Vallabha hiding in the forests of Chhattisgarh. Vallabha had a conventional education in the Vedic literature and other Hindu texts. He worked in the temples of the Vijayanagara court, and then embarked on a years-long pilgrimage to the major sacred sites of Hinduism on the Indian subcontinent. He met scholars of Advaita Vedanta of Adi Shankara, Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja, Dvaita Vedanta of Madhvacharya as well as his contemporary Chaitanya Mahaprabhu of Bengal. His visit to Vrindavan in the north persuaded him to accept and dedicate himself to the bhakti of Krishna and writing his philosophical premises in Sanskrit and a few in the Braj language. His devotional mantra ""Sri Krishna Sharanam Mama"" (Shri Krishna is my refuge) became the initiatory mantra of Pushtimargis. The term "pushti" to Vallabha implied "spiritual nourishment", a metaphor for Krishna's grace. Vallabhacharya has been a major scholar of the Bhakti tradition of Hinduism, as a devotional movement that emphasizes love and grace of God as an end in itself. Vallabhacharya initiated his first disciple Damodardas Harsani with a mantra along with the principles of Pushtimarga. When he died in 1531, Vallabacharya delivered the leadership of his movement to his elder son, Gopinatha. At Gopinatha's death in 1543, he was succeeded by his younger brother Vitthalanatha, a key figure in the development of the Pushtimarg. He codified the doctrine of the movement and died in 1586. At his death, the eight primary icons of Krishna of the Pushtimarg were distributed among his seven sons, plus one adopted son. Some fragmentation followed, as each son of Vitthalanatha was able to confer initiations and start his own independent lineage, although the different branches remained unified by the doctrine. Among the descendants of Vitthalanatha, some acquired prestige as scholars, including Gokulanatha (1552-1641), Hariraya (1591-1711), and Purusottama (1668-1725).