In this two part series, I introduce the rudimentary brass tacks of Indian traditional way of acquiring, assimilating and transmitting knowledge. This method has been in vogue from time immemorial and continues even today albeit in not so glorified way. I also highlight how scientific this method of Indian epistemology is in practice.

India is perhaps the unique civilization which gave utmost prominence to institutionalized education which had stood the test of times until the invasions happened from different parts of the world. The institution was also unique in its make-up as it comprised a setting where the teacher and the pupils lived under the same roof whence the guru imparted knowledge as well as carried himself as a role model that inspired his pupils. The disciples or the students posited utmost devotion on their guru and this was far from sycophancy. Because traditionally, every student had the right to test the guru, and vice versa, before committing several years of his life in pursuit of education. 

Despite such devotion, it is very pertinent and interesting to note the way knowledge got created, transmitted and evolved in the past in our country. It was never dogmatic or dictatorial. Facts were tested on the anvil of logic and logic alone informed our epistemology. The rigor with which attention was paid to every minute detail is indeed very mind-boggling and thoroughly a scientific methodology is what we get to see. In this article (two parts) I introduce the fundamental epistemological tool set that was used in this process and possibly draw parallels with the ‘modern scientific’ methods.

Valid knowledge was developed using certain means and they are called Pramāṇa which can be roughly translated in English as ‘proof.’ In the language of set theory, the cardinality of this Pramāṇa set varied from one system to the other. It is indeed noteworthy to mention that there were diverse systems which can be broadly divided into two groups, one that reckoned the vedic hymns as a valid member of the Pramāṇa set and the other did not. Even in the former system there are variations, details of which will be covered in future articles. 6 Pramāṇas are considered the most common and popular ones. There have been umpteen discussions in the past by the scholars in establishing the uniqueness and independence of these 6 Pramāṇas. It is by these 6 epistemic tools that facts were transformed as valid knowledge. Let me briefly explain each of them in the following paragraphs

Pramāṇa 1: Pratyakśa

Pratyakśa in English means perception. This is the first valid means of knowledge where we directly perceive using our sense organs. There are four constraints inherent in Pratyakśa thereby making it foolproof. For instance, it is not Pratyakśa, a valid knowledge, by merely hearing someone say about the thunder rather it’s the direct hearing of thunder by our own ears. These perceptions where our sense organs are involved, is referred to as external and there is a whole lot of perception that goes on within our body which involves our mind and this is called internal. In fact, it’s the right convergence and confluence of the external and internal perception that leads to the right cognition. And this right cognition is the prerequisite for any valid knowledge. 

Although there is no strict order in which the Pramāṇa are reckoned, traditionally Anumāna comes after Pratyakśa. Anumāna literally means inference. Whereas seeing fire with our eyes is Pratyakśa, inferring the presence of fire on seeing only the smoke is Anumāna. In this case, past memory too plays a big role. Unless one has seen smoke and fire together in the past or has seen fire to cause smoke, it will become difficult to infer fire from only observing the smoke. In this way this slightly differs from the usual ‘inference’ that most students are familiar from their high school chemistry lab of ‘experiment-observation-inference.’ Simply put Anumāna means cognition that arises after perception. The inferring process comprises three steps namely, stating the hypothesis along with stating whether the hypothesis is to be proved or disproved, reasons and finally examples. Another example that I can think is testing the water content of milk using a hygrometer. With Pratyakśa we can see the reading in the hygrometer and from the standard table (past knowledge), we can infer to what extent the milk was diluted. Here even though we did not directly see water getting added to the milk, yet we can infer it. The whole gamut of science or the scientific method in fact can be contained in these two Pramāṇas namely Pratyakśa and Anumāna because experiments are the bedrock and the final words and experimental data is indeed akin to Pratyakśa and thereafter the analysis of the data leads to inferences further leading to valid knowledge. 

Pramāṇa 3: Upamāna

Upamāna means comparison and/or analogy. This can be best understood using an example. Imagine describing the iconic Indian eatery, idly, to a Japanese or a Korean who has never seen it. Interestingly, they have rice cake in their cuisine which may resemble our idly. So in order to acclimatize the Japanese or the Korean with the knowledge of Idly, one has to resort to the mode of comparing it with their rice cake. Comparing idly to moon (owing to the white complexion) or to a white choco pie (owing to the near approximate shape) and many such comparisons may lead to confusion rather than helping one to know idly better. Hence this epistemic tool has been debatable to the extent that few systems do not consider it a valid means of knowledge. Notwithstanding this point, Upamāna is extensively used in Indian poetry and perhaps the most used figures of speech in Indian languages.

 

(To be continued with other 3 Pramāṇas in Part 2)

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