7. The Sources of Valid Knowledge

The Western philosophy generally accepts two sources of knowledge: Perception and Inference while different schools of Indian philosophy adopt different number of pramāṇas. In Indian philosophy there are total eight pramāṇas: Perception, Inference, Comparison, and Verbal testimony, Presumption, Negation, Tradition and Intuition. Out of these eight pramāṇas, Cārvāka School accepts only perception as valid source of knowledge. The Cārvāka School is also known as materialistic school which believes that perception is the only source of knowledge; there are only four elements air, water, fire and earth; Pleasure is the only aim of human existence; there is no heaven or other world: Death indicates enlightenment. As Cārvāka School believes in perception, it maintains that what we perceive is the only reality. On the basis of this, he maintained his epistemology and metaphysics. On the other hand, rest of the schools accept more than one pramāṇas like Buddhist school of philosophy accept two pramāṇas i.e. perception and inference. The Jainas add one more to the list i.e. verbal testimony. The Nyāya School adopts four pramāṇas and add one more to the list i.e. comparison. The Prabhākara Mīmāṃsaka School adopts five pramāṇas and add one more to it i.e. presumption. The Bhatta Mīmāṃsaka joins “non-apprehension” as the sixth means of knowledge. Hence, Perception, Inference, Verbal testimony, Analogy, Presumption, and Non-apprehension are considered as the six sources of valid knowledge. Advaita Vedānta recognises all of them as valid sources of knowledge. Some schools of theistic Vedānta, however add to this list of pramāṇas ratiocination, probability, tradition, and intuition.

Perception: It is one of the most essential pramāṇa because all other pramāṇas are depended on it. It is sensory awareness. Perception indicates the knowledge which occurs through the medium of eyes (sense organ). For example: -The perception of chair before me is because of the contact of my eyes with the chair. Perception is used in two forms i.e. as an adjective; Perception (pratyakṣa) indicates that which is direct and immediate. As a noun, it indicates immediate knowledge.

Inference: It is also known as inferential or relational knowledge. It is considered as that cognition which assumes some other cognition. It is neither immediate nor direct but mediate and indirect which arises through a “mark”. In inference, three terms are involved i.e. “middle term” (liṅga or hetu), the major term and the minor term, the middle term invariably attached with the “major term”(sādhya). Vyāpti is regarded as the nerve of inference. For instance: when a person sees smoke, he naturally thinks that there must be fire, it occurs because in our past experience we have seen this situation before i.e. where smoke exists, there must be fire.

Analogy: Analogy is also known as comparison where we get knowledge of an unknown object through comparison to a known object. Here, we move towards known to unknown objects by making comparison. For instance: At first time when a person perceives “gavaya” he/she immediately recalls the characteristics of a cow which he/she has perceived before often and then he starts comparison the general characteristics of the “gavaya” with the characteristics of the cow and declares that it is “gavaya”. The Mīmāṃsaka maintains that “upmāna” is an independent means of knowledge. As it is not based on sense-organs, one cannot be described it as sense-perception. Further, it does not have the features of inference. There is no vyāpti in comparison to make it inference. A new object perceived by analogy which is not earlier apprehended. For instance before the perception of a “gavaya” its similarity with a cow is not apprehended at all.

But the Buddhists believe that comparison is not an independent means of knowledge. The person who makes the comparison between “gavaya” and “cow” perceives both the cow and the “gavaya” and their common characteristics. He makes the distinction between the gavaya and the cow based on some features which are not there in the cow. This perception he gets on the basis of his senses. Hence the mode of his understanding is perceptual. So, analogy is a kind of perception.^[1] Kumārila does not agree with the Buddhist view on analogy and argues that the object of comparison is the resemblance between an object which is memorized and an object which is perceived. Although, resemblance is grasped by senses, but the apprehension of the memorized object which have resemblance with the perceived object is not apprehended by senses. Thus, comparison and perception are not same both are different and comparison is an independent source of knowledge.

Diṅnāga holds comparison is merely “perception of likeness” is not different from perception and verbal testimony. When a person sees a cow and a “gavaya” it is by sense-organs that he cognized the similarity between the two. While perceiving, he knows that some features of the cow are there in “gavaya” while some features are not. Hence, comparison is not an independent and different means of knowledge.

Verbal Testimony: Verbal testimony is also known as Shabda and Āgama. It is described as the declaration of a reliable person which is known as Āptavākya. A sentence is a group of many words and a word is defined as that which is efficacious to express the meaning. According to earlier Nyāya, the potential of word to express its meaning comes from God while for later Nyāya its meaning comes from a reliable person and divine. Testimony has two types: Vaidika and Secular. The Vaidika testimony is free from error as it is believed that the Vedas are words of God; while secular testimony are the words of ordinary people which are subject to error. The words of reliable person who always speak truth can be considered as valid while others are not. A word has potentiality to indicate a thing and a sentence is composed of words. But a sentence is meaningful only when it fulfils certain conditions. The conditions are four in number: Ākānṣā, Yogyāta, Sannidhi, and Tātparya.^[2] The first condition is known as common implication. The words in a sentence should be related to one another and express sensible meaning. Only the group of non associated words cannot express a logical meaning. For instance: it would be mere nonsense to say “Apple, mango, banana, orange”. The second condition says the words should have the ability to express the sensible meaning. It should not involve contradiction. It will be a contradictory sentence, e.g., “water the field with blaze”. The third condition says words should have close proximity to one another. While speaking words, there should be a quick succession without long intervals. If the words “water”, “the”, “plants” are said at long intervals it will not create a sensible sentence. The fourth condition depends on the objective of the speaker when words are ambiguous. For instance: the word “Racket” means “a piece of sports equipment” as well as “a loud noise”. If a man who is doing party asks another to make a racket, the latter should not make a piece of sport equipment.

So, Nyāya and Mīmāṃsaka maintain that verbal testimony is a separate and independent means of knowledge because knowledge produced from it is different from sense perception as its object is away from the reach of senses. Again, it cannot be inference as it misses all the qualities of an inferential cognition.

Diṅnāga does not agree with the above view, he says verbal testimony is not different from perception and inference. Reliable means either the reliable man speaks truly or that the word spoken by the man is reliable and true in nature. In the first case it shows the “credibility of the man” is deduced from inference, in the later case our faith is relied on perception. In this way verbal testimony cannot be called as an independent source of knowledge.^[3]

The Mīmāṃsaka which takes Veda as the ultimate source of knowledge give certain arguments in order to prove the infallibility of the Veda. Firstly, the words spoken by a reliable person cannot be considered as valid because it is not easy to believe who is reliable and who is not. Secondly, a man is not free from defects like anger, delusion etc and thus their spoken words cannot provide valid knowledge. They maintain that Vedas are not creation of human hence their words are valid. They are ineffective by the shortcomings of human words. But Buddhists found this argument as unsound. Dharmakīrti urges that the argument is not sound for proving the validity of the Veda. A person who suffers from defects like hatred, anger etc the same person also qualifies with some excellences such as compassion, wisdom etc which give validity to a cognition. They cannot subsist in a vacuum. The Vedas are not the creation of human. So, it lacks excellences and cannot be a means of valid knowledge. Again, when we try to understand the meaning of the sentences of the Veda that meaning can be understood with the help of symbols and these symbols can be conveyed merely by human beings. Since, Human beings are not free from defects like hatred, anger etc the meaning of words which show by symbols by human beings are not free from errors and defects.^[4]

Presumption: Presumption is also known as implication, postulation and arthāpatti. In presumption, we assume the fact which is not perceived yet in order to reconcile two non-consistent perceived facts. If a person is overweight and he does not take his meal at noon, we assume that he must be taking his meal at night. “Being overweight” and “not taking meal at noon” are two perceived truths which emerge to be inconsistent. And this inconsistency is eliminated when we assume the fact of “taking meal at night”. The Nyāya School takes presumption into the realm of inference and does not consider it as a separate source of knowledge. The Mīmāṃsaka believes presumption is an independent means of knowledge.

The Buddhist does not agree with Mīmāṃsaka. According to them, presumption is not different from perception or inference. The instance of the nightly taking meal of a person is a case of inference. Being overweight and taking meals are interrelated as the effect and the cause respectively. Thus, the former reaches to the inference of the latter.

Negation: Negation is also known as non-apprehension and anupalabdhi. When the five means of knowledge do not work, negation works as a means of cognition of an object. Kumārila maintains “negation” as a separate source of knowledge. According to him, since the thing of negation is negative so its means must be negative. He makes the distinction between negation and perception. We perceive the positive side of an object by using perception whereas we perceive the negative side of the same thing in negation. The Buddhists reject the arguments of Kumārila. If “negation of apprehension” is an entity, the negation of apprehended thing should also be entity. Kumārila’s argument that “negation of the effect” includes in its cause, itself indicates that the fact of its presence in the cause is completely a separate thing from negation and is included in perception.

Ratiocination: Ratiocination is regarded by some philosophers as separate source of knowledge. But Kumārila has included it in inference. Ratiocination is illustrated as follows-“X comes about when Y is there. X does not come about when Y is not there. Therefore X proceeds from Y. Obviously this ratiocination is a clear case of inference based on causality. So it cannot be taken as a separate source of knowledge.

Probability: The Paurāṇikas are the propounders of probability (saṃbhava) as an independent source of knowledge. If one says that he has a hundred rupees in his pocket, listening this the listener remark that it is highly probable that he has ten rupees in his pocket. The Paurāṇikas call this process of knowing as saṃbhava.

Tradition: Tradition involves a long continued assertion whose original promulgator cannot be identifiable, but which has come down through a long continued assertion, e.g., a ghost has supernatural powers.

Intuition: In Intuition, there is an indication of both “existence” or “non-existence” of objects and which comes to be true without any restrictions of time and place. E.g. when a mother has the idea “my son will come today”, and he actually does come about, it is a case of intuition.

According to Sāṃtarakṣita [Śāntarakṣita], “tradition” and “intuition” are often turned out to be false. They cannot provide certainty and thus cannot be regarded as true means of knowledge at all. The knowledge produced by the tradition and intuition is either based on perception or non-perception. The first case can be included in perception while the latter case can be included in inference. He concludes that all the sources of knowledge apart from perception and inference do not have the fundamental features of a valid means of knowledge in our experience these sources involve contradiction. They are not apprehension of an unapprehended object. Thus, they cannot be considered as valid means of knowledge. The valid means of knowledge are two i.e. perception and inference. They can”t be increased nor decreased in number.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

M.Hattori, op.cit., p.78.

[2]:

C.D. Sharma, op. cit, p. 204.

[3]:

J. Prasad, op. cit, p.117.

[4]:

C.L. Tripathi, op.cit, p.41.