Prapañca
Prapañca is the Sanskrit term for the manifested universe — the entire phenomenal world of names and forms that we perceive and inhabit. Etymologically derived from 'pra' (forward/out) + 'pañca' (five), suggesting the fivefold expansion from the five great elements (mahābhūtas), the term encompasses the totality of the created cosmos in all its dimensions: gross physical matter, subtle bodies, the realm of individual souls, and all the intermediate planes of existence that constitute the created order.
The interpretation of prapañca's ultimate nature is one of the central points of divergence between Vedānta schools. In Advaita Vedānta, prapañca is ultimately māyā — a superimposition (adhyāsa) on the one undifferentiated Brahman. The diversity and apparent reality of the phenomenal world is an appearance projected by māyā; when Brahman-knowledge dawns, prapañca is revealed as non-real. In Viśiṣṭādvaita, this interpretation is firmly rejected: prapañca is real and not an appearance. The world is Bhagavān's body (śarīra), His prākāra (qualifying mode), and specifically His līlā-vibhūti — the domain of His playful divine sport. Its reality is the reality of a body to its indwelling soul — not independent or absolute, but genuinely real as the instrument and expression of Bhagavān's divine will.
The Śrī Vaiṣṇava theology distinguishes two realms of Bhagavān's vibhūti (divine domain): the nitya-vibhūti (eternal domain — Vaikuṇṭha, the transcendent realm of eternal liberated souls and nitya sūris) and the līlā-vibhūti (the play domain — the manifest prapañca, the cosmos of time, space, karma, and saṃsāra). Prapañca is Bhagavān's līlā-vibhūti, and its entire existence — from the first moment of cosmic creation (sṛṣṭi) through its sustenance (sthiti) to its dissolution (saṃhāra) — is continuously an expression of His sovereign freedom and compassion, maintained for the jīvātmans' evolution and eventual liberation.