5

It was only natural that Ramanuja’s advocacy of qualified non-duality should lead some more uncompromising spirit to affirm the doctrine of Dvaita or duality.  This step was taken by Madhva Acarya, a Kanarese Brahman who was probably born in 1199 A.D.[595] In the previous year the great temple of Jagannatha at Puri had been completed and the Vishnuite movement was at its height.  Madhva though educated as a Saiva became a Vaishnava.  He denied absolutely the identity of the Supreme Being with the individual soul and held that the world is not a modification of the Lord but that he is like a father who begets a son.  Yet in practice, rigid monotheism is not more prevalent among Madhva’s followers than in other sects.  They are said to tolerate the worship of Sivaite deities and of the lingam in their temples[596] and their ascetics dress like Saivas.

Madhva travelled in both northern and southern India and had a somewhat troubled life, for his doctrine, being the flat contradiction of the Advaita, involved him in continual conflicts with the followers of Sankara who are said to have even stolen his library.  At any rate they anathematized his teaching with a violence unusual in Indian theology.[597] In spite of such lively controversy he found time to write thirty-seven works, including commentaries on the Upanishads, Bhagavad-gita and Vedanta Sutras.  The obvious meaning of these texts is not that required by his system, but they are recognized by all Vaishnavas as the three Prasthanas or starting-points of philosophy and he had to show that they supported his views.  Hence his interpretation often seems forced and perverse.  The most extraordinary instance of this is his explanation of the celebrated phrase in the Chandogya Upanishad Sa atma tat tvam asi.  He reads Sa atma atat tvam asi and considers that it means “You are not that God.  Why be so conceited as to suppose that you are?"[598] Monotheistic texts have often received a mystical and pantheistic interpretation.  The Old Testament and the Koran have been so treated by Kabbalists and Sufis.  But in Madhva’s commentaries we see the opposite and probably rarer method.  Pantheistic texts are twisted until they are made to express uncompromising monotheism.

The sect is often called Brahma-sampradaya, because it claims that its doctrine was revealed by Brahma from whom Madhva was the sixth teacher in spiritual descent.  Its members are known as Madhvas but prefer to call themselves Sad-Vaishnavas.  Its teaching seems more rigid and less emotional than that of other Vishnuites and is based on the Pancabheda or five eternal distinctions between (a) God and the soul, (b) God and matter, (c) the soul and matter, (d) individual souls, (e) individual atoms of matter.  God is generally called Vishnu or Narayana rather than Vasudeva.  Krishna is adored but not in his pastoral aspect.  Vishnu and his spouse Lakshmi are real though superhuman