Śiva-Tattva From a Vaishnava Perspective: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

In traditional Indian philosophy, important treatises usually begin by defining terms according to a given school of thought. Despite the vast discord among the propounders of multiple theological and philosophical systems, their ontological definitions are usually expressed by the word “tattva,” which refers to each of the elements or principles accepted as absolutely or relatively true according to the system in question. For example, in the realism of Madhvācārya’s Dvaitavāda and in Kapila’s Sāṅkhya, the five gross elements (ether, air, fire, water and earth) are considered truly existing elements or tattvas, while in Śaṅkarācārya’s Māyāvāda and in Buddhist Sūnyavāda they are taken as relatively true just for the sake of argument, since in the former there is ultimately only one element, Brahman, while in the latter there is ultimately no element at all.