Madhva, a thirteenth-century Kannada theologian, is the hardest counterweight in Vedanta to the idea that Hinduism trends toward oneness. His five differences are eternal and unresolvable; souls are dependent on Vishnu but never merge with him; and he taught a doctrine almost nobody else in India accepts — that souls are intrinsically graded, some destined for liberation, some for endless rebirth, and some for eternal darkness. Later scholarship noted the resemblance to Christian predestination and speculated about contact with Syrian Christians on the Kanara coast; Madhva's own tradition rejects the suggestion firmly, and the evidence is thin. His lineage runs the Udupi temples and produced the Haridasa singers whose Kannada songs are the backbone of Karnatic music. Present Hinduism as monist and you have deleted him, and several million people who take him seriously.