Viśiṣṭādvaitam — Qualified Non-Dualism
Viśiṣṭādvaitam (Sanskrit: viśiṣṭa — qualified/particular; advaita — non-dualism) is the philosophical system articulated and systematised by Rāmānuja in the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE, and held as the doctrinal foundation of the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition. The term itself encodes the philosophy's central insight: reality is non-dual (advaita) — there is only one supreme Being — but that Being is not a featureless, undifferentiated Absolute. He is qualified (viśiṣṭa) by his modes or attributes, which are the individual conscious souls (cit) and the insentient material world (acit). These two are real modifications or 'bodies' of Bhagavān, inseparable from him yet genuinely distinct in their own nature.
Viśiṣṭādvaitam was formulated to resolve a long-standing tension within Vedic thought: the testimony of mystics reporting the experience of complete unity with God (supporting non-dualism) and the testimony of devotees experiencing worship of a personal, transcendent God (supporting dualism). Viśiṣṭādvaitam holds that both testimonies are correct: the deepest core of every soul is none other than Bhagavān himself (which grounds the mystic's experience of oneness), while the soul also possesses its own distinct selfhood as a mode of Bhagavān's being (which grounds the devotional relationship).
Rāmānuja articulates the relationship through the śarīra-śarīrī bhāva (body-soul analogy): just as a body belongs entirely to the soul that inhabits it yet remains distinct from that soul, so the individual jīvātmā and the material world are the body of Bhagavān, wholly belonging to and sustained by him. This framework is elaborated systematically in the Vedārtha Saṅgrahaḥ, the Śrī Bhāṣyam (Rāmānuja's commentary on the Brahma Sūtras), and throughout the tradition's vast literature.