The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1407 page)

 
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(dates uncertain, ranging from 1199–1278 CE to 1238–1317)
. Founder of a Hindu
Vai
ava
school and philosophy whose adherents are known as M
dhvas. It is the third (with
a
kara
and
R
m
nuja
) of three major related philosophical schools, and because it is opposed to the non-dualism of
a
kara and the qualified non-dualism of R
m
nuja, and because it maintains five irreducible dualities, it is known as
dvaitaved
nta
. The five distinctions are between: God and the soul; God and matter; the individual soul and matter; between souls; between individual components of the material. The final union with God is not one of absorption, nor of a relation in which the constituent parts, while retaining identity, nevertheless constitute one reality, but rather of a distinction between lover and beloved which is eternal. He wrote many works, especially commentaries. He established his main temple (dedicated to
K
a