Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Why not also yogipratyakṣa?

A Naiyāyika thinker might propose that accepting yogipratyakṣa does not harm one’s belief in the Veda as instrument of knowledge. In fact, the same information can be known through more than one instrument of knowledge according to Naiyāyikas. Mīmāṃsā thinkers (and Vedāntin ones, such as Vedānta Deśika) reply that, once a more powerful instrument of knowledge has satisfied one’s need to know something, there is no scope for any other instrument of knowledge.

Hence, other instruments of knowledge just do not become active in regard tosomething which has already been known (see Katoka, JIPh 2003). So, Mīmāṃsakas separate the realm of what can be known in two fields:

sensory items ––» known through sense perception
transcendent items ––» known through verbal communication (Veda)

The Veda, as explained by Śabara, corresponds to sense perception in conveying a direct knowledge of transcendent items.

This is an implicit criticism against these schools (e.g. Śaivasiddhānta or, later on, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism) who allegedly acknowledge the authority the Veda, but de facto abolish it, insofar as they propose other Sacred Texts/practices/rituals as more effective for the attainment of the summum bonum.
In modern terms, it is interesting to note that the Veda seems to be considered only as an instrument of knowledge. No one proposes that the Veda might have a purpose beside being informative. Does this mean that no connotative purpose is taken into account? Not really, since the indirect signification would also be a plausible content to be conveyed by an instrument of knowledge.

No comments:

Licenza Creative Commons
Quest' opera è distribuita con licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 2.5 Italia.