Dvaita (Sanskrit: द्वैत, meaning “duality” or “dualism”) is a school of Vedanta philosophy founded by the 13th-century Indian philosopher Madhvacharya (also known as Madhva or Anandatirtha). It holds that the individual soul (jiva) and the supreme reality (Brahman, identified with Vishnu) are eternally and fundamentally distinct - a position that sets it apart from the non-dualist school of Advaita Vedanta and the qualified non-dualism of Vishishtadvaita. Dvaita is one of the three principal schools of Vedantic thought and remains a living theological tradition, particularly among Vaishnava communities in Karnataka and across the Indian subcontinent.
Madhvacharya (c. 1238-1317 CE) systematized Dvaita philosophy through a series of commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads, as well as independent works such as the Anuvyakhyana. His school is sometimes called Tattvavada (“doctrine of reality”) by its adherents. Madhva drew on earlier Vaishnava devotional traditions but gave them rigorous philosophical form, arguing that the distinctions between God, souls, and the material world are not illusory (as in Advaita) but ontologically real and eternal. He also controversially posited a doctrine of predestination (svabhava), holding that souls are classified into those destined for liberation, those destined for eternal existence in the world, and those destined for eternal damnation. For a fuller account of the tradition's development, see Dvaita - History.
Note: Madhvacharya's dates are subject to scholarly dispute. The range c. 1238-1317 CE reflects the consensus of modern academic scholarship; traditional Madhva sources place his birth as early as c. 1199 CE.(1)
Dvaita philosophy is defined by five fundamental and eternal distinctions (pañca-bheda):
On this view, liberation (moksha) does not mean the merging of the soul with Brahman, but rather the soul's eternal, blissful proximity to and direct perception of Vishnu in a state of dependence (svarupananda). Knowledge (jnana), devotion (bhakti), and divine grace are held to be the means of liberation, with grace playing an indispensable and, in Madhva's formulation, ultimately decisive role.
Dvaita exists within the broader Vedantic tradition as a distinct and often polemical alternative to Advaita Vedanta (associated with Adi Shankaracharya) and Vishishtadvaita (associated with Ramanujacharya). Advaita holds that Brahman alone is real and that individual souls and the material world are ultimately illusory (maya); Vishishtadvaita holds that souls and matter are real but exist as attributes or modes of Brahman; Dvaita holds that God, souls, and matter are all genuinely real without qualification, though souls and matter remain entirely dependent on and subordinate to God. These differences carry significant theological implications for the nature of devotion, the meaning of scriptural texts, and the character of liberation. How these distinctions should be understood and which school most faithfully represents the Vedantic scriptures remains an area of ongoing philosophical and theological debate. See Vedanta - Debate.
There is broad scholarly consensus that Dvaita constitutes one of the three historically and philosophically significant schools of classical Vedanta, and that Madhvacharya's works represent a systematic and internally coherent philosophical system. Questions of which school most correctly interprets the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, and Bhagavad Gita are treated by scholars as matters of philosophical and theological interpretation rather than empirical fact. See Vedanta - Philosophical Consensus.