MADHAVA, a celebrated Biahman, native of Tuluva, who became prime minister to Vira Bukka Raya, king of Vijayanagar in the 14th century. Madhava was brother of Sayana, author of the great commentary on the Veda, in Which work 31adhava is believed to have shared. Both brothers are celebrated as scholars, and many important works are attributed to them, not only scholia on the Sanhitas and Brahmans of the Vedas, but original works on grammar and law. Among those of Madhava are the Sarva-Darsana Sangraha and the Sankshepa Sankara-vijaya. Madhava was a worshipper of Vishnu, and as a religious philosopher he held the doctrine of Dwaita or dualism, according to which the supreme soul of the universe and the human soul are dis tinct. •Sankaracharya, who lived in the 8th or 9th century, was a follower of Siva, and upheld the Vedanta doctrine of Adwaita or non-duality, according to which God and soul, spirit and matter, are all one.
Madhava wrote the Jaiminiya Nyaya Main Vis tarn, a work on philosophy. The various styles and subjects in the writings attributed to them point to a variety of authorship. But Dr. Burnell says the 29 writings of 3fadhava were composed by him between A.D. 1331 and 1386, whilst he was abbot of the monastery of Sringeri.
He is the founder of the Dwaiia philosophy, and was known by the name Ananda Tirtha. He established temples at Udipi, Madyatala, Subrah maniya, and other places ; also eight mat'hs or monasteries in Tuluva, below the ghats. The superior gurus of this sect are Brahmans or Sunyasis, who profess cmnobitic observances ; the disciples who are attached to the several mat'hs profess also perpetual celibacy, lay aside the Brahmanical cord, carry a staff and a water pot, go bareheaded, and wear a single wrapper stained of an orange colour with an ochrey clay.
They are usually adopted into the order from their boyhood, and acknowledge no social affinities nor interests. They regard Vishnu as the Supreme Spirit, as the pre-eminent cause of the universe, from whose substance the world was made. In Karnata, the sect is presided over by eight Swami or spiritual heads.
Madhava's Sarva-Darsana-Sangraha is a critical review of the principal systems of philosophy which have exercised the greatest minds of India throughout its middle age. From the Vedanta point of view (for Madhava was in 1331 elected Prior of the Smarta Order, founded by Sankara charya in 8th century), these systems are arranged in a progressive series, beginning with the Charvaka and Bauddha, as being the furthest removed from the Vedanta, and gradually ascend ing to the Sankhya and Yoga, the systems nearest approaching to Madhava's, and therefore the highest. He successively passes in review the sixteen philosophical systems current in the 14th century in the south of India, and gives what appeared to him to be their most important tenets, and the principal arguments by which their followers endeavoured to maintain them. • In the course of his sketches he frequently explains at some length obscure details in the different systems. As a rule, he draws his observations directly from the works of their founders or their chief exponents. One author says he was born A.D. 1199 in Tuluva. Professor Wilson says he lived in the 13th century.— Wilson ; Burnell's Vansa Brahmana ; Weber.