ual conflicts with the followers
of Sankara who are said to have even stolen his library. At any rate
they anathematized his teaching with a violence unusual in Indian
theology.[597] In spite of such lively controversy he found time to
write thirty-seven works, including commentaries on the Upanishads,
Bhagavad-gita and Vedanta Sutras. The obvious meaning of these texts
is not that required by his system, but they are recognized by all
Vaishnavas as the three Prasthanas or starting-points of philosophy
and he had to show that they supported his views. Hence his
interpretation often seems forced and perverse. The most extraordinary
instance of this is his explanation of the celebrated phrase in the
Chandogya Upanishad Sa atma tat tvam asi. He reads Sa atma atat tvam
asi and considers that it means "You are not that God. Why be so
conceited as to suppose that you are?"[598] Monotheistic texts have
often received a mystical and pantheistic interpretation. The Old
Testament and the Koran have been so treated by Kabbalists and Sufis.
But in Madhva's commentaries we see the opposite and probably rarer
method. Pantheistic texts are twisted until they are made to express
uncompromising monotheism.

The sect is often called Brahma-sampradaya, because it claims that its
doctrine was revealed by Brahma from whom Madhva was the sixth teacher
in spiritual descent. Its members are known as Madhvas but prefer to
call themselves Sad-Vaishnavas. Its teaching seems more rigid and
less emotional than that of other Vishnuites and is based on the
Pancabheda or five eternal distinctions between (_a_) God and the
soul, (_b_) God and matter, (_c_) the soul and matter, (_d_)
individual souls, (_e_) individual atoms of matter. God is generally
called Vishnu or Narayana rather than Vasudeva. Krishna is adored
but not in his pastoral aspect. Vishnu and his spouse Lakshmi are
real though superhuman personalities and their sons are Brahma the
creator and Vayu.[599] Peculiar to this sect is the doctrine that
except through Vayu, the son of Vishnu, salvation is impossible. Vayu
has been three times incarnate as Hanumat, the helper of Rama, as
Bhima and as Madhva himself.[600] Souls are separate, innumerable and
related to God as subjects to a king. They are of three classes: those
who are destined to eternal bliss in the presence of God: those who
revolve eternally in the maze of transmigration: and those who tending
ever downwards are doomed to eter