One of the branches of Vedanta, the
philosophical school claiming to reveal
the ultimate (anta) teaching of the
ancient sacred texts known as the
Vedas. Dvaita Vedanta’s founder and
most important figure was the philosopher Madhva, who lived in southern
India in the thirteenth century.
Madhva’s basic theory is the utter transcendence of God, and this conviction
leads him to suggest a philosophical
position known as dualism. Dualism
asserts a qualitative difference
between God in his transcendence and
the corruptions of material things.
According to Madhva, God is completely different from human Selves
and the material world, even though
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Dvaita (“dual”) Vedanta
both of these come from God and
depend on Him for their continuing
existence. In this dualism, Madhva differs sharply from the major school of
Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta. The Advaita
school upholds a philosophical position known as monism, which is the
belief that a single Ultimate Reality—
called Brahman—lies behind all
things, and that all things are merely
differing forms of this single reality.
Whereas Advaita collapses all things
into one thing, Madhva firmly insists
on maintaining differences.
Madhva’s stress on dualism leads
him to clarify these differing types of
things, which is known as the “fivefold
difference”: the difference between God
and the Self, between God and the
world, between individual Selves,
between Selves and matter, and
between individual material things.
Even though each Self is believed to
contain an aspect of God, this fundamental difference gives the Self only a
limited capacity for religious life. This
limited power means that final liberation of the soul comes solely through the
grace of God, who alone has the power
to effect it. Final liberation is conceived
both as freedom from rebirth and as the
soul’s opportunity to remain in the
divine presence forever.
With its stress on God’s utter transcendence and the emphasis on grace
as the sole vehicle for salvation,
Madhva’s Dvaita Vedanta has often
been compared to the theology of John
Calvin. Madhva even stated that the
world had three classes of beings:
those eventually destined for liberation (muktiyogas), those destined for
eternal rebirth (nityasamsarins), and
those destined for eternal damnation
(tamoyogas). Like Calvin, Madhva did
not see these categories as promoting
fatalism, but rather that the prospect
of never attaining liberation could urge
one to the faith necessary to pursue an
active religious life. For further information see Karl H. Potter (ed.),
Presuppositions of India’s Philosophies,
1972; and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
and Charles A. Moore (eds.), A
Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, 1957.