For Madhvacharya and the Dvaita Vedanta tradition, the foundational scriptural base is the *Prasthāna-traya*: the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gītā, and the Brahma Sūtras (Vedānta Sūtras). These are regarded as the primary sources for understanding the nature of reality, the relationship between the individual soul and the Supreme, and the path to liberation. Within this triad, the principal Upaniṣads are given special weight, while the Bhagavad Gītā and Brahma Sūtras are studied through Madhva’s own commentaries, which are treated as authoritative guides to their intended meaning. In this way, the Dvaita school roots its theology in the same core texts as other Vedānta systems, but reads them through a distinct dualistic lens.

Alongside these, the tradition accords great importance to the *Purāṇas*, especially the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is often treated as particularly authoritative, and texts such as the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and other Purāṇas that glorify Viṣṇu are used to elaborate and illustrate the doctrines already grounded in the Prasthāna-traya. The great epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, are also central, not merely as narratives but as scriptural sources of dharma and theology. Madhvacharya’s own work, *Mahābhārata-tātparya-nirṇaya*, reflects this deep engagement with the epic as a comprehensive repository of spiritual teaching.

The scriptural universe of Madhva Vedānta further includes the Pāñcarātra Āgamas, particularly those texts that are seen as consistent with the Veda and that guide temple worship and ritual centered on Viṣṇu. These are not treated as independent authorities rivaling the Veda, but as practical and theological extensions that support a life of devotion in harmony with the higher śruti and smṛti. In this layered vision, the Veda and its Vedāntic culmination stand at the summit, while Purāṇas, Itihāsas, and Āgamas serve to unfold, clarify, and concretize those teachings for the devotee.

Finally, for followers of this sampradāya, Madhvacharya’s own writings function as a normative interpretive lens on all these scriptures. His commentaries on the Brahma Sūtras, Bhagavad Gītā, and Upaniṣads, together with works such as *Bhāgavata-tātparya-nirṇaya* and other independent treatises, are treated as the definitive articulation of Dvaita Vedānta. Later Dvaita authors build on this foundation, but always in deference to the hierarchy in which the Veda is supreme, the Prasthāna-traya is central, and the Purāṇas and epics are honored as essential, but subordinate, witnesses to the same ultimate truth.