MADHVA (1274)

Also called ANANDATIRTHA and PURNAPRAJÑA.

Hindu philosopher, exponent of Dvaita (dualism or belief in a basic difference in kind between God and individual souls).
His followers are called Madhvas.

Born into a Brahmin family his life in many respects parallels the life of Jesus Christ.

Miracles attributed to Christ in the New Testament were also attributed to Madhva (as a youth he was found by his parents after a four-day search discoursing learnedly with the priests of Visnu; later on a pilgrimage to the sacred city of Varanasi (Benares) he is reputed to have walked on water, repeated the miracle of the loaves of bread, calmed rough waters and become a "fisher of men"). It is suggested that he may have been influenced by a group of Nestorian Christians residing at Kalyanpur during his youth.

Madhva set out to refute the non-dualistic advaita philosophy of Sankara (died c. 750) who believed the individual self to be a phenomenon and that the absolute spirit (Brahman) is the only reality. Thus Madhva rejected the venerable Hindu theory of maya (illusion) which taught that only spiritually is eternal and the material world is illusory and deceptive (appears to be one thing but is constantly changing into something else; he maintained that simply because things are transient and everchanging does not mean they are not real).

Departing from orthodox Hinduism in a number of ways he was one of a small minority of Hindu thinkers who have believed in eternal damnation offering a concept of Heaven and Hell to his followers. He nevertheless offered a third alternative a Hindu purgatory of endless transmigration of souls (reincarnation) or rebirth.

Madhva´s cult outlawed temple prostitutes, offered figures made od dough as a substitute for blood sacrifices and its adherents customarily branded themselves on the shoulder with a multi-armed figure of Visnu.

During his lifetime Madhva wrote 37 works in Sanskrit mostly commentaries on Hindu sacred writings and treatises on his own theological system and philosophy.
Madhva insisted that knowledge is a relative thing not an absolute. He wrote:
"There can be no knowledge without a knower and that which is known".