Madhvacharya

Madhvacharya
Shri Madhvacharya's idol at his birth place Pajaka, Udupi
Personal
Born
Vāsudeva

c. 1199 (or 1238)[1]
Diedc. 1278 (or 1317)
ReligionHinduism
Organization
OrderVedanta
Founder ofUdupi Sri Krishna Matha
PhilosophyTattvavada (Which later popularly came be known as Dvaita Vedanta)
Religious career
GuruAchyuta-preksha[3]
Literary worksSarvamula Granthas
HonorsPūrṇa-prajña
Jagadguru
Quotation

Reality is twofold: independent and dependent things. The Lord Vishnu is the only independent thing.[4]

Madhvacharya (IAST: Madhvācārya; pronounced [mɐdʱʋaːˈtɕaːrjɐ]; 1199–1278 CE[5] or 1238–1317 CE[6]), also known as Purna Prajna (IAST: Pūrṇa-Prajña) and Ānanda Tīrtha, was an Indian philosopher, theologian and the chief proponent of the Dvaita (dualism) school of Vedanta.[1][7] Madhva called his philosophy Tattvavāda meaning "arguments from a realist viewpoint".[7]

Madhvacharya was born at Pajaka near Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka state in 13th-century India.[8] As a teenager, he became a Sanyasi (monk) joining Brahma-sampradaya guru Achyutapreksha, of the Ekadandi order.[1][3] Madhva studied the classics of Hindu philosophy, and wrote commentaries on the Principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras (Prasthanatrayi),[1] and is credited with thirty seven works in Sanskrit.[9] His writing style was of extreme brevity and condensed expression. His greatest work is considered to be the Anuvyakhyana, a philosophical supplement to his bhasya on the Brahma Sutras composed with a poetic structure.[8] In some of his works, he proclaimed himself to be an avatar of Vayu, the son of god Vishnu.[10][11]

Madhvacharya was a critic of Adi Shankara's Advaita Vedanta and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta teachings.[7][8] He toured India several times, visiting places such as Badrinath, Bengal, Varanasi, Dwaraka, Goa and Kanyakumari, engaging in philosophical debates and visiting Hindu centres of learning.[9] Madhva established the Krishna Mutt at Udupi with a murti secured from Dwarka Gujarat in 1285 CE.[8]

Madhvacharya's teachings are built on the premise that there is a fundamental difference between Atman (individual soul, self) and the Brahman (ultimate reality, God Vishnu), these are two different unchanging realities, with individual soul dependent on Brahman, never identical.[7] His school's theistic dualism teachings disagreed with the monist[12] teachings of the other two most influential schools of Vedanta based on Advaita's nondualism and Vishishtadvaita's qualified nondualism.[7][13] Liberation, asserted Madhva, is achievable only through the grace of God.[7] The Dvaita school founded by Madhva influenced Vaishnavism, the Bhakti movement in medieval India, and has been one of the three influential Vedānta philosophies, along with Advaita Vedanta and Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.[8][14][15] Madhva's historical influence in Hinduism, state Kulandran and Kraemer: "has been salutary, but not extensive.“

  1. ^ a b c d e Sharma 1962, p. xv.
  2. ^ Bryant 2007, p. 357.
  3. ^ a b Sheridan 1991, p. 117.
  4. ^ Bryant 2007, p. 361.
  5. ^ "Madhva | Hindu philosopher | Britannica". Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  6. ^ Sharma 2000, p. 103.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Stoker 2011.
  8. ^ a b c d e Sharma 1962, pp. xv–xvii.
  9. ^ a b Sharma 1962, p. xv–xvi.
  10. ^ Sarma 2000, p. 20 with footnotes 3 and 4.
  11. ^ Sabapathy Kulandran and Hendrik Kraemer (2004), Grace in Christianity and Hinduism, James Clarke, ISBN 978-0227172360, pages 177–179
  12. ^ Sharma 1962, pp. 36–37.
  13. ^ Bryant 2007, pp. 315, 358–361.
  14. ^ Bryant 2007, pp. 12–13, 359–361.
  15. ^ Stafford Betty (2010), Dvaita, Advaita, and Viśiṣṭādvaita: Contrasting Views of Mokṣa, Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East, Volume 20, Issue 2, pages 215–224