Within Dvaita Vedānta, the material world (jagat) is affirmed as fully real, not as an illusion or mere appearance. It is a genuine creation of a real God, Viṣṇu, and possesses true existence distinct from Him. This reality, however, is not independent: only Viṣṇu enjoys absolute, self-subsisting reality, whereas the world has a dependent reality, existing and functioning solely through divine support. Thus, the world is neither a projection to be dismissed nor a partial identity of Brahman, but a distinct order of being grounded in God.

The relationship between God, souls, and the world is characterized by real and irreducible difference. God, individual souls, and matter form distinct categories of reality, and these distinctions are not the product of ignorance but are fundamental features of existence. The world is governed and pervaded by Viṣṇu, yet it never becomes identical with Him; it can be spoken of as His body, with Him as the inner controller, while remaining ontologically distinct. This dual affirmation of intimacy and difference gives Dvaita its characteristic devotional and theistic flavor.

Dvaita Vedānta also understands the world as beginningless and enduring through cycles of creation, sustenance, dissolution, and re-manifestation. Particular forms and configurations arise and pass away, but this change is itself real, not illusory, and the world is never utterly annihilated, even in cosmic dissolution. Rather, it persists in subtler modes, always dependent on God’s will and power. In this way, the jagat is both dynamic and stable: dynamic in its ever-shifting forms, stable in its ongoing, God-dependent reality.

Finally, the world is viewed as the meaningful arena in which souls experience the fruits of karma and are offered the opportunity for devotion to Viṣṇu. It is the field where ethical action, spiritual discipline, and bhakti unfold, and thus has a positive soteriological role. Far from being something to be written off as mere illusion, the jagat becomes the divinely ordered context through which souls can move toward liberation, while always remaining distinct from the Lord who sustains it.