Means of Knowledge (Pramāṇa)
How do we know anything truly? India's schools answered by counting the valid roads to knowledge.
Pramāṇa is one of the great organizing ideas of Indian philosophy: a 'valid means of knowledge,' a reliable route by which we come to know what is true. Schools build their whole systems on which means they accept — perception, inference, and the testimony of trustworthy words being the most widely admitted. Debates over the pramāṇas are how Indian thinkers argued about evidence, reason, and the authority of scripture.
How it traveled
- Yoga-sūtraKāśī (Varanasi) · 375explains
- UpadeśasāhasrīKālaḍi (Kaladi) · 710explains
Key passages(18)
So let the Shâstra be thy authority in ascertaining what ought to be done and what ought not to be done. Having known what is said in the ordinance of the Shâstra, thou shouldst act here. The end of t
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Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'They who know the life of life, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, they have comprehended the ancient, primeval Brahman .
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'Let us hear what anybody may have told you.' Ganaka Vaideha replied: 'Gitvan Sailini told me that speech (vak) is Brahman.' Yagnavalkya said: 'As one who had (the benefit of a good) father, mother, a
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'When one perceives, then one understands. One who does not perceive, does not understand. Only he who perceives, understands. This perception, however, we must desire to understand.' 'Sir, I desire t
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He (the Self) cannot be reached by speech, by mind, or by the eye. How can it be apprehended except by him who says: "He is?"
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