Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Madhva all read the same terse aphorisms yet unfold from them strikingly different visions of Vedānta. Śaṅkara’s Advaita centers on an ultimately attributeless, undifferentiated Brahman, for whom all names, forms, and qualities belong only to an empirical standpoint. In this reading, the world is neither absolutely real nor absolutely unreal, but a dependent appearance grounded in ignorance (avidyā), and the individual self is in truth non-different from Brahman. Rāmānuja, by contrast, insists that Brahman is always endowed with auspicious qualities and is concretely identified with Nārāyaṇa; the term “nirguṇa” is taken not as “without attributes” but as “free from negative or material qualities.” Madhva likewise rejects an attribute-less absolute and upholds Viṣṇu as the supreme, personal Brahman, eternally distinct from all other entities. Thus, where Śaṅkara’s commentary moves toward radical non-duality, the other two insist on a richly qualified or even uncompromisingly dualistic theism.

These differing starting points shape how each commentator understands the world and the individual soul. For Śaṅkara, the manifold universe and the plurality of selves are valid only at the empirical level and are ultimately sublated when true knowledge dawns; individuality is a product of superimposition upon the one Self. Rāmānuja refuses any such downgrading of the world’s status: souls and matter are real and eternal, yet wholly dependent on Brahman, standing to God as body to indwelling soul. Madhva goes further in affirming a robust realism, teaching that God, souls, and matter are all fully real and that difference is ontologically ultimate, including differences among souls themselves and among material entities. In both Rāmānuja and Madhva, the individuality of the soul is never erased, even in the highest state, whereas Śaṅkara’s vision culminates in the recognition that the true Self is nothing other than Brahman.

These divergences come to the fore in their accounts of bondage, liberation, and the reading of key scriptural statements. Śaṅkara locates bondage in beginningless ignorance of one’s identity with Brahman and sees liberation as the rise of non-dual knowledge through disciplined hearing, reflection, and contemplation; devotion and ritual have a preparatory role, purifying the mind for this insight. Rāmānuja and Madhva both reject the notion of a single cosmic illusion obscuring non-duality, tracing bondage instead to karma, ignorance in the sense of not knowing or surrendering to the personal God, and the inherent limitations of the soul. For Rāmānuja, the highest path is loving devotion and total surrender, culminating in eternal service to the personal Lord in which individuality is perfected rather than dissolved. Madhva emphasizes devotion to Viṣṇu grounded in correct understanding of His supremacy, with liberation granted by divine grace and experienced as everlasting, blissful proximity and service, never as identity. Even in interpreting celebrated mahāvākyas such as “tat tvam asi,” Śaṅkara reads strict identity, Rāmānuja sees inseparable dependence within a larger unity, and Madhva stresses fellowship or dependence without erasing the eternal difference between God and soul.