tatva sa~NkhyAna

tatva sa~NkhyAna is an ontological work of shrI madhvAcharya. In this short work, tattva or reality is defined and elaborated. The supremacy of shrI viShNu is the main theme of this work. It is stressed that every other entity in the universe is dependent on viShNu for its existence, sustenance, creation etc. Reality can be divided into two categories - Independent and Dependent. viShNu is the only independent reality. Hence He is called svatantra. Everything else is dependent on viShNu and is called as Dependent or asvatantra tattva.

Though the Reality can be categorised into sentient (cetana), non-sentient(acetana) or some other categories, according to the school of madhvAchArya, this kind of categorisation is useless as it does not help in the main purpose of leading one to liberation. Hence such an effort is equated to starting to count the sand particles on the banks of the River Ganga instead of taking a holy dip to earn great merit. As shrI jayatIrtha puts it - ga~NgAvAlukaparigaNanavadidaM apArthakaM syAt.

Text of tatva sa~NkhyAna : tatva sa~NkhyAna [pdf][44kb]

tattva sa~NkhyAna with commentary of shrI jayatIrtha: tattva sa~NkhyAna satIka [pdf][40 kb]