Madhvacharya (; ; 1199–1278 CE or 1238–1317 CE), also known as Purna Prajna () and Ānanda Tīrtha, was an Indian philosopher, theologian and the chief proponent of the Dvaita (dualism) school of Vedanta. Madhva called his philosophy Tattvavāda meaning "arguments from a realist viewpoint". Madhvacharya was born at Pajaka near Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka state in 13th-century India. As a teenager, he became a Sanyasi (monk) joining Brahma-sampradaya guru Achyutapreksha, of the Ekadandi order. Madhva studied the classics of Hindu philosophy, and wrote commentaries on the Principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras (Prasthanatrayi), and is credited with thirty seven works in Sanskrit. 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. In some of his works, he proclaimed himself to be an avatar of Vayu, the son of god Vishnu,Sabapathy Kulandran and Hendrik Kraemer (2004), Grace in Christianity and Hinduism, James Clarke, , pages 177–179 however, the textual basis cited for some such claims has been questioned in modern scholarship, especially by Roque Mesquita, who argued that a number of scriptural sources adduced by Madhva in support of this and other doctrines are untraceable and were likely composed by Madhva himself under what he believed to be divine inspiration. Madhvacharya was a critic of Adi Shankara's Advaita Vedanta and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta teachings. 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. Madhva established the Krishna Mutt at Udupi with a murti secured from Dwarka Gujarat in 1285 CE.
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. His school's theistic dualism teachings disagreed with the monist teachings of the other two most influential schools of Vedanta based on Advaita's nondualism and Vishishtadvaita's qualified nondualism. Liberation, asserted Madhva, is achievable only through the grace of God. 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.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 Madhva's historical influence in Hinduism, state Kulandran and Kraemer: "has been salutary, but not extensive."
Early life The biography of Madhvacharya is unclear about his year of birth. Many sources date him to 1238–1317 period, but some place him about the 1199–1278 period.
Madhvācārya was born in Pajaka near Udupi, a coastal district in the present-day Indian state of Karnataka. Traditionally it is believed that his father's name is Naduillaya (Sanskrit: Madhyageha, Madhyamandira) and the name of his mother is unclear, although many sources variously claim it as Satyavati and Vedavati. Born in a Tulu Shivalli Brahmin household, he was named Vāsudeva. Later he became famous by the names Purnaprajna, Anandatirtha and Madhvacharya (or just Madhva). Pūrnaprajña was the name given to him at the time of his initiation into sannyasa (renunciation), as a teenager. The name conferred on him when he became the head of his monastery was "Ānanda Tīrtha". All three of his later names are found in his works. Madhvācārya or Madhva are names most commonly found in modern literature on him, or Dvaita Vedanta related literature.
Madhva began school after his Upanayana at age seven, and became a monk or Sannyasi in his teens, although his father was initially opposed to this.Helmuth von Glasenapp: Madhva's Philosophie des Vishnu-Glaubens, Geistesströmungen des Ostens vol. 2, Bonn 1923, Einleitung (p. *3). He joined an Advaita Vedanta monastery in Udupi (Karnataka), accepted his guru to be Achyutrapreksha, who is also referred to as Achyutraprajna in some sources. Madhva studied the Upanishads and the Advaita literature, but was unconvinced by its nondualism philosophy of oneness of human soul and god, had frequent disagreements with his guru, left the monastery, and began his own tattvavada movement based on dualism premises of Dvi – asserting that human soul and god (as Vishnu) are two different things. Madhva never acknowledged Achyutrapreksha as his guru or his monastic lineage in his writings. Madhva is said to have been clever in philosophy, and also to have been tall and strongly built.Glasenapp: Madhva's Philosophie des Vishnu-Glaubens, Einleitung (pp. *11-12).
Career
Madhvacharya never established a matha (monastery) dedicated to Dvaita philosophy, however his lineage of students became the sanctuary for a series of Dvaita scholars such as Jayatirtha, Sripadaraja, Vyasatirtha, Vadiraja Tirtha, Raghuttama Tirtha, Raghavendra Tirtha and Satyanatha Tirtha who followed in the footsteps of Madhva.
A number of hagiographies have been written by Madhva's disciples and followers. Of these, the most referred to and most authentic is the sixteen cantos Sanskrit biography Madhvavijaya by Narayana Panditacharya – son of Trivikrama Pandita, who himself was a disciple of Madhva.
Incarnation of Vayu, the wind god
In several of his texts, Sarma and other scholars state, "Madhvacharya proclaims himself to be the third avatar or incarnation of Vayu, wind god, the son of Vishnu". He, thus, asserted himself to be Hanuman – the first avatar of Vayu, and Bhima – a Pandava in the Mahabharata and the second avatar of Vayu. In one of his bhasya on the Brahma Sutras, he asserts that the authority of the text is from his personal encounter with Vishnu. Madhva, states Sarma, believed himself to be an intermediary between Vishnu and Dvaita devotees, guiding the latter in their journey towards Vishnu.
Miracles Madhva is said to have performed several miracles during his lifetime, including making tamarind seeds appear as made of gold, consuming 4,000 bananas and thirty big pots of milk in one sitting, fighting and winning against robbers and wild animals, crossing the Ganga without getting his clothes wet, and giving light to his students through the nails of his big toes after the lamp went out while they were interpreting a text at night.Glasenapp: Madhva's Philosophie des Vishnu-Glaubens, Einleitung (pp. *6-7).
Interpretations Madhvacharya is said to have quoted some verses from his unique revisions of scriptures. Also, he is said to have quoted many unique books like Kamatha Sruti. The interpretation of Balittha Sukta by Madhvacharya and his followers to prove that Madhvacharya was an incarnation of Vayu is considered highly unique by standard commentaries on them like Sayana and Horace Hayman Wilson.
Many of Madhvacharya's scriptural citations cannot be traced to any known existing texts, a problem first raised by rival scholars centuries ago. Appayya Dīkṣita (16th century), in his Madhvatantramukhamardana, accused Madhva of adducing spurious text passages in support of his teaching, and argued that Madhva's claim to be the third avatar of Vayu after Hanuman and Bhima was made in order to lend authority to these otherwise untraceable quotations. The scholar A. Venkatasubbhiah suggested as early as 1933 that Madhva had fabricated his sources. Indologist Roque Mesquita of the University of Vienna systematically investigated over 250 pages of untraceable quotations attributed by Madhva to the Puranas and the Mahabharata, concluding that these passages were original compositions by Madhva himself, produced under what Madhva sincerely believed to be divine inspiration from Vishnu, intimately connected to his self-identification as an incarnation of Vayu. Mesquita argued that Madhva's doctrine that an avatar is absolutely identical with the deity it incarnates effectively blurred the distinction between the original author of a scriptural text and Madhva as its reader and quoter, allowing Madhva to compose new verses in what he regarded as honest obedience to divine impulse rather than deliberate fraud. This view has been contested by Dvaita scholars such as B. N. K. Sharma and Shrisha Rao, who argue that Mesquita's research was incomplete and that some of the supposedly untraceable sources have collateral evidence for their existence in manuscript traditions not consulted by Mesquita.
Works of Madhvacharya
Thirty seven Dvaita texts are attributed to Madhvacharya. Of these, thirteen are bhasya (review and commentary) on Principal Upanishads, a Madhva-bhasya on the foundational text of Vedanta school of Hinduism – Brahma Sutras, another Gita-bhasya on Bhagavad Gita, a commentary on forty hymns of the Rigveda, a review of the Mahabharata in poetic style, a commentary called Bhagavata-tatparya-nirnaya on Bhagavata Purana. Apart from these, Madhva is also attributed for authoring many stotras, poems and texts on bhakti of Vishnu and his avatars. The Anu-Vyakhyana, a supplement to Madhvacharya's commentary on Brahma Sutras, is his masterpiece, states Sharma.
While being a profusely productive writer, Madhvacharya restricted the access to and distribution of his works to outsiders who were not part of Dvaita school, according to Sarma. However, Bartley disagrees and states that this is inconsistent with the known history of extensive medieval Vedantic debates on religious ideas in India which included Dvaita school's ideas.
Madhva's philosophy
The premises and foundations of Dvaita Vedanta, also known as Dvaitavada and Tattvavada, are credited to Madhvacharya. His philosophy championed unqualified dualism. Madhva's work is classically placed in contrast with monist ideas of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.
Epistemology
Madhva calls epistemology Anu pramana. It accepts three pramānas, that is three facts or three correct means of knowledge, in contrast to one of Charvaka and six of Advaita schools of Hindu philosophies:Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharya (1994), Epistemology, in The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume 6, Princeton University Press, , pages 53–68Howard Coward et al., Epistemology, in Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume 5, Motilal Banarsidass, , pages 51–62 Pratyaksha (प्रत्यक्ष) means perception. It is of two types in Dvaita and other Hindu schools: external and internal. External perception is described as that arising from the interaction of five senses and worldly objects, while internal perception is described as that of inner sense, the mind.B Matilal (1992), Perception: An Essay in Indian Theories of Knowledge, Oxford University Press, Karl Potter (1977), "Meaning and Truth", in Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Volume 2, Princeton University Press, Reprinted in 1995 by Motilal Banarsidass, , pages 160–168 Anumāna (अनुमान) means inference. It is described as reaching a new conclusion and truth from one or more observations and previous truths by applying reason.W Halbfass (1991), Tradition and Reflection, State University of New York Press, , page 26-27 Observing smoke and inferring fire is an example of Anumana. This method of inference consists of three parts: pratijna (hypothesis), hetu (a reason), and drshtanta (examples).James Lochtefeld, "Anumana" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A-M, Rosen Publishing. , page 46-47John A. Grimes, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English, State University of New York Press, , pages 41–42