Madhvacharya, also known as Purnaprajña and later Anandatirtha, was a renowned Vedantic philosopher and theologian from Pajaka near Udupi in South India. He embraced the life of a renunciant and emerged as a prolific author, composing commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and the major Upanishads, along with independent treatises. Through these works, he articulated a distinctive understanding of the Vedic revelation, presenting a robust theistic vision centered on Vishnu as the supreme reality. His life and writings together reveal a thinker intent on grounding devotion in a precise metaphysical and scriptural framework, rather than leaving it to sentiment alone.

His central philosophical contribution was the systematic formulation of Dvaita, or dualist Vedanta. Madhvacharya taught that the difference between the individual soul (jiva) and the Supreme Being (Brahman or Vishnu) is real, fundamental, and eternal, thereby rejecting the claim that they are ultimately identical. He further articulated five real and eternal distinctions (pancha-bheda): between God and individual souls, God and matter, individual souls and matter, among individual souls, and among material objects. In this way, he opposed non-dualistic readings of the same scriptures, arguing that, when rightly understood, they affirm an unbridgeable ontological gap between the independent reality of God and the dependent reality of souls and the world.

Madhvacharya’s role was not limited to abstract speculation; he also shaped a living religious tradition. By founding monastic institutions at Udupi and organizing them into an enduring lineage, he ensured that Dvaita Vedanta would not remain a mere set of ideas but would be transmitted through disciplined communities of practice and teaching. Within this framework, devotion (bhakti) to Vishnu was upheld as the primary path to liberation, yet always in harmony with the dualistic metaphysics he expounded. His works also include detailed refutations of Advaita Vedanta and other rival schools, not merely to negate them, but to clarify and defend a theistic dualism that could sustain both rigorous philosophy and heartfelt devotion.