(
Hinduism,
Vaishnavism)
Sri Madhva is the principal acarya, or
spiritual teacher, in in the Brahma-sampradaya, the
Vaishnava disciplic line from which the Gaudiya sampradaya
descends. He was born in Udupi, South India, in the early thirteenth
century. At the age of five he took initiation and at the age of twelve
left home to take sannyasa. Madhvacarya studied the Vedas
under the compiler of the Vedas, Vyasadeva, in the Himalayas.
Madhvacarya's Vedanta-sutra commentary -- Purnaprajna-bhasya --
establishes the doctrine known as Suddha-dvaita-vada. Madhva used
his erudite scholarship to crush the Mayavada (impersonalistic)
philosophy and establish devotional service to the Supreme Personality of
Godhead.
(See Sri Caitanya Caritamrita, Madhya-lila 9.245.)