Madhvacharya

Madhvacharya was a thirteenth-century Indian philosopher and theologian who founded the Dvaita (dualism) school of Vedanta. He argued, against both Shankara and Ramanuja, that God (Vishnu), souls, and matter are fundamentally and eternally distinct.

Madhva's rigorous dualism — five types of fundamental difference structure reality — gave Vaishnava devotional theology a systematic philosophical basis. His commentaries on the Brahma Sutras and Upanishads offered close textual arguments against non-dualist readings, and his tradition remains influential in the Udupi region of Karnataka.