Īśvara
How does Brahman function as Lord or creator?
Īśvara is Brahman considered as Lord and ruler. The question is how Brahman functions as Lord or creator.
Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita both identify Īśvara with Brahman as Lord and ruler, but they differ sharply in how that lordship relates to Brahman's ultimate nature, the individual self, and the reality of divine qualities. Madhva's commentary does not separate the Lord from Brahman; his account of the Lord as ruler within all beings appears under Brahman.
How each commentator reads it
Brahman understood as Ishvara, the Lord and internal ruler: the highest Self considered in relation to universal rulership, omnipotence, causal agency, and devotion. Sankara explains the empirical distinction between Ishvara and the individual self through a limiting adjunct, while affirming the Self is ultimately one.
Read Śaṅkara’s interpretation →Brahman understood as Ishvara: the Supreme Person, ruler of all, whose auspicious qualities and causal agency over the world's origination, subsistence, and reabsorption identify him directly with Brahman. Ramanuja also affirms the Lord as sole creator of the content of dreams, with the power to instantly realize any wish.
Read Rāmānuja’s interpretation →About the evidence
Both traditions comment on the same sūtra in this discussion (Brahma Sūtra 3.2.5), each addressing why the individual soul's own true nature remains hidden from it: Advaita through the veil of Nescience over a shared, underlying identity; Viśiṣṭādvaita through the Lord's own will. This is a genuine point of contact between the two accounts, not a claim that their arguments are otherwise the same.
No passage from Madhva is included under this concept.