Viśeṣya — The Supreme Substance, Brahman as the Qualified
Viśeṣya (Sanskrit: viśeṣya = "that which is to be qualified" or "the qualified entity") is the correlate of viśeṣaṇa (qualifier) in Indian philosophical grammar and metaphysics. In everyday usage, in the sentence "the blue lotus," "lotus" is the viśeṣya (the substantive) and "blue" is the viśeṣaṇa (the qualifier). In Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, this grammatical relationship is elevated to a cosmological and soteriological principle.
For Rāmānuja, Brahman — Śrīman Nārāyaṇa with Śrī Lakṣmī — is the ultimate viśeṣya: the infinite, self-luminous substance that stands as the ground of all reality and the referent of all meaningful theological predication. When we say that Brahman is omniscient, omnipotent, and the inner controller (antaryāmin) of all souls and matter, these are viśeṣaṇas specifying the one viśeṣya. When we say that the world is real and souls are conscious, these statements are ultimately about Brahman qualified by its body of cit and acit.
The viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāva thus resolves the classical Vedāntic tension between the Upaniṣadic statements of unity ("sarvam khalv idam Brahma" — all this is Brahman) and difference ("jīvo Brahmaiva nāparaḥ" cannot mean simple identity for Rāmānuja). Brahman as viśeṣya is not an abstract, featureless Absolute but the personal, relational Supreme Being of the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition — fully characterized by infinite auspicious qualities (kalyāṇa-guṇas) and by the jīva-jagat as His eternal body.