Shastra Quiz 15

In Sanskrit, knowledge is called pramā, the knower of such valid knowledge is called pramātā, and the means by which it is validly known is called pramāna.

Pramāna can also mean “proof,” “evidence,” or “authority.”

Keśava Miśra gives the following definitions in his Tarkabhāṣā 1.2-3:

"Pramā-karaṇam pramāṇam, atra pramāṇaṁ lakṣyaṁ, pramākaraṇaṁ lakṣaṇam"

The karaṇā or the most essential cause of attaining proper understanding, proper cognition, valid knowledge (pramā) is called pramāna. Therefore, if pramāna is proper then knowledge will be proper and if pramāna is improper then obviously the knowledge will be improper.

Different schools of Indian philosophy and theology accept different pramāṇas as valid. According to Jīva Gosvāmī, there are a total of ten pramāṇas, or means of valid knowledge, which he lists in his Sarva-saṁvādinī commentary.

Each school recognizes a certain number of these as valid independent means, and either reject the rest or subsumes them under the accepted pramāṇas. Each school presents arguments to support its opinion.

These ten traditional pramāṇas, with the three most important listed first, are as follows:

1. Pratyakṣa, perception.

2. Anumāna, inference.

3. Śabda, revealed sound-knowledge.

4. Ārṣa, the statements of an authoritative sage, ṛṣi, or deva.

5. Upamāna, comparison.

6. Arthāpatti, presumption.

7. Anupalabdhi, non-cognition of being, or cognition of the absence of being.

8. Sambhava, inclusion.

9. Aitihya, tradition.

10. Ceṣṭā, gesture.

It's important to note that although there are ten pramāṇas, the root pramāṇa is scripture alone, whose nature is sentences devoid of the faults of misapprehension, illusion, willful-deception, and the faulty senses.

When a sense organ comes in contact with a perceivable object under favorable conditions, and provided the sense faculty is internally linked with the mind, then knowledge of the perceived object arises in the mind. This is known as perception.

Perception is of two types — external and internal. An external perception occurs when we acquire knowledge of quantifiable objects through the external senses. In an internal perception we acquire knowledge directly through the mind, as when we perceive emotions such as pain, pleasure, love, and hate.

In Gītā 15.7, Śrī Kṛṣṇa lists the mind as the sixth sense (manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi).

Perception can be a means to either valid or invalid knowledge. But only those sense perceptions that lead to valid knowledge should be considered as pramāṇa.

Because of the defect of inadvertence (pramāda), and because our senses are prone to delusion (bhrama) and limitation (karaṇāpāṭava), pratyakṣa is not a consistently reliable means of acquiring valid knowledge.

Besides these defects, the scope of pratyakṣa is limited only to the present, since perceptions by definition cannot be of past or future events. Moreover, it is limited only to external or internal phenomena.

While the word pratyakṣa is generally used to denote ordinary perception, it is sometimes used to refer to the actualization of the direct mode of knowing through conscious identity.

For this reason, in his book Sarva-saṁvādinī, Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī makes two divisions of pratyakṣa, namely vaiduṣa or “divine perception,” meaning skilled, flawless, and of the nature of unconditioned knowing through all-embracing intuition; and avaiduṣa or “sensory perception,” meaning unskilled, flawed, and of the nature of conditioned knowing determined by its objects.

Vaiduṣa-pratyakṣa belongs to God, His associates, and the perfected beings, while avaiduṣa-pratyakṣa belongs to ordinary humanity. It is the divine perception that is free of any defects and that forms the basis of śabda.

For most people, knowledge received through the senses is the very definition of direct, or pratyakṣa jñāna. For example, when we taste an apple with our own tongue, we say that we directly experienced it – the apple was aparokṣa or immediate to us (the words “immediate knowledge” mean knowledge unobstructed from us by anything else). Likewise with seeing and so on.

Indeed, this is also the definition of pratyakṣa in Nyāya which goes like this:

indriya-sannikarṣajanyam jñānaṁ pratyakṣaṁ - The perceptual knowledge resulting from contact between a sense and its sense object is pratyakṣa jñāna.

The followers of Śankarācārya insist that śabda or words can also give aparokṣa jñāna or direct knowledge of external or internal objects within our perceptual range. This is a key precept of Advaita-vāda, and Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī also accepts it.

In the process of creation, Vāsudeva manifests as the first Puruṣa (Mahāviṣṇu, or Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu), who is an expansion of Saṅkarṣaṇa.

The second Puruṣa, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, is an expansion of Pradyumna, and the third Puruṣa, Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, is an expansion of Aniruddha.

The system of planets within the lotus stem that sprouts from the navel of Mahāviṣṇu is meditated upon as a form of Bhagavān Viṣṇu, known as Virāṭ Puruṣa, or the universal being. It is not an actual form of Viṣṇu but only imagined as such for the sake of meditation.

A neophyte yogī, whose awareness is oriented toward overt phenomena, can conceive of God only in terms of gross objects. He is therefore advised to contemplate the universe as the Virāṭ Puruṣa. Such a recommendation is offered by Śukadeva in verses 2.1.23–39.

This meditation helps the aspiring yogī to abandon his exploitative nature, recognizing everything as part of the body of God. Ultimately, the yogī must progress beyond such meditation and shift his focus to the real form of Paramātmā.

Ābhāsa-vāda is a school of Advaitavāda which holds that the jīva is a mere semblance of Brahman.

This position stands in contrast to the theories of pratibimba-vāda and avaccheda-vāda, the former conceiving the jīva as a reflection of Brahman, and the latter, as Brahman delimited by the individual’s internal psychic apparatus (antaḥ-karaṇa)

To explain something the general procedure is to refer to shastra and then give an example to illustrate it.

Generally apasiddhānta is an outcome of misinterpreting śāstra and then giving an example to illustrate the misinterpretation.

Sometimes apasiddhānta is just based upon an example, like the famous example of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa that Realization of the Absolute is like a salt doll entering into an ocean. Once it enters, there is no more doll, only the ocean. The example is very good but there is no shastra to support it.