[1][3] Madhva studied the classics of Hindu philosophy, and wrote commentaries on the Principal Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras (Prasthanatrayi),[1] and is credited with thirty seven works in Sanskrit.

His greatest work is considered to be the Anuvyakhyana, a philosophical supplement to his bhasya on the Brahma Sutras composed with a poetic structure.

[8][14][15] Madhva's historical influence in Hinduism, state Kulandran and Kraemer: "has been salutary, but not extensive.“ The biography of Madhvacharya is unclear about his year of birth.

[20] He joined an Advaita Vedanta monastery in Udupi (Karnataka),[3] accepted his guru to be Achyutrapreksha,[16] who is also referred to as Achyutraprajna in some sources.

[1] Madhva studied the Upanishads and the Advaita literature, but was unconvinced by its nondualism philosophy of oneness of human soul and god, had frequent disagreements with his guru,[19] left the monastery, and began his own tattvavada movement based on dualism premises of Dvi – asserting that human soul and god (as Vishnu) are two different things.

Of these, the most referred to and most authentic is the sixteen cantos Sanskrit biography Madhvavijaya by Narayana Panditacharya – son of Trivikrama Pandita, who himself was a disciple of Madhva.

[8] In several of his texts, Sarma and other scholars state, "Madhvacharya proclaims himself to be the third avatar or incarnation of Vayu, wind god, the son of Vishnu".

[10][11] Madhva is said to have performed several miracles during his lifetime, including transforming tamarind seeds into gold coins, consuming 4,000 bananas and thirty big pots of milk in one sitting, fighting and winning against robbers and wild animals, crossing the Ganges without getting his clothes wet, and giving light to his students through the nails of his big toes after the lamp went out while they were interpreting a text at night.

[28] While being a profusely productive writer, Madhvacharya restricted the access to and distribution of his works to outsiders who were not part of Dvaita school, according to Sarma.

[42] Madhva's Dvaita school holds that Vishnu as a God, who is also Hari, Krishna, Vasudeva and Narayana, can only be known through the proper samanvaya (connection) and pramana of the Vedic scriptural teachings.

[44] The created universe is the dependent reality, consisting of Jīva (individual souls) and Jada (matter, material things).

[7][45] Madhva further enumerates the difference between dependent and independent reality as a fivefold division (pancha-bheda) between God, souls and material things.

[48] According to Madhvacharya, even in liberation (moksha), the bliss is different for each person based on each one's degree of knowledge and spiritual perfection.

[18] Madhva conceptualised Brahman as a being who enjoys His own bliss, while the entire universe evolves through a nebulous chaos.

The four primary manifestation of Him as the Brahman are, according to Madhva, Vasudeva, Pradyumna, Aniruddha and Sankarasana, which are respectively responsible for the redemptive, creative, sustaining and destructive aspects in the universe.

[53][54] His writings led some early colonial-era Indologists such as George Abraham Grierson to suggest the 13th-century Madhva was influenced by Christianity,[11] but later scholarship has rejected this theory.

[64] This is because, states Madhva, the soul is influenced by sensory organs, one's physical body and such material things which he calls as gifts of God.

[64] Madhvacharya asserts, Yathecchasi tatha kuru, which Sharma translates and explains as "one has the right to choose between right and wrong, a choice each individual makes out of his own responsibility and his own risk".

[70][71][72] He wrote up arguments against twenty one ancient and medieval era Indian scholars to help establish the foundations of his own school of thought.

[76] Shankara's Advaita school and Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita school are premised on the assumption that all souls can hope for and achieve the state of blissful liberation; in contrast, Madhvacharya posited that some souls enjoy spreading chaos and irreligion, and even enjoy being eternally doomed and damned as such.

This set of followers undertook the mission of carrying Madhva's teaching to the four comers of the country using Kannada or the local language as a vehicle of communication.

The HariDasas pioneered in breaking the shackles of caste, creed and regionalism – they practiced devotion in its purest form and were instrumental in delivering the marvels of Madhva Siddhantha to the common man by way of songs, suladees and Bhakti Dasa Sahitya.

These Haridasas came to be known as the Dasa Section or Dasa-Kuta of the Madhva Sampradaya in contrast with the Vyaasa-Kuta who were Scholars, Pandits or teachers of literature & critical thought.

[82] Other influential subschools of Vaishnavism competed with the ideas of Madhvacharya, such as the Chaitanya subschool, whose Jiva Gosvami asserts that only Krishna is "Svayam Bhagavan" (the supreme form of God), in contrast to Madhva who asserts that all Vishnu avatars are equal and identical, with both sharing the belief that emotional devotion to God is the means to spiritual liberation.

[84] According to Sharma, the influence of Madhva's Dvaita ideas have been most prominent on the Chaitanya school of Bengal Vaishnavism,[85] and in Assam.

[94][dubious – discuss] However, the indologist and religious scholar Helmuth von Glasenapp assumes that monotheism can also be derived from the Indian intellectual world,[92] and that there is no reason supporting the theory that Madhva's views on afterlife were influenced by Muslim or Christian impulses.

The pontiff is called Swamiji, and he leads daily Krishna prayers according to Madhva tradition,[97] as well as annual festivals.

[98] The process and Vedic mantra rituals for Krishna worship in Dvaita monasteries follow the procedure written by Madhvacharya in Tantrasara.

[98] The succession ceremony in Dvaita school involves the outgoing Swamiji welcoming the incoming one, then walking together to the icon of Madhvacharya at the entrance of Krishna temple in Udupi, offering water to him, expressing reverence then handing over the same vessel with water that Madhvacharya used when he handed over the leadership of the monastery he founded.

[97] Professor Kiyokazu Okita and Indologist B. N. K. Sharma says, Sannyasis in the lineage of Dvaita school of Vedanta belongs to Ēkadaṇḍi tradition just like the Sanyasi's of Advaita of Adi Shankara.