4.1 Pramanas

4.1 Pramanas

By Peter Snyders © 8th April 2024

If you would like to research spiritual knowledge yourself, you may wish to look up the word pramana. If you would like to take it step by step as we are doing, look up the first pratyakasa which means perception.

In our first (or previous) blogspot on Perception we spoke of external sources of knowledge. These are what we perceive through our external senses. But is everything we see always true? What if we are travelling in a car and see some distance ahead of us, that the road is covered with water? When we get to the place where we thought that we saw some water, there is no water at all? Where did the water go? Or perhaps we should ask: What did I see?

What we saw was an illusion [a misleading image presented to the vision: something that deceives or misleads intellectually: perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature]. It was a hot day and black, like the tar of the road, absorbing heat quickly. When it cannot take any more heat, it dissolves all the extra heat into heat waves. That is what we saw as water: heat waves.

Now the explanation for such a perception is caused and can be explained by external means. All we have to do is research the topic or ask someone who also travels by car.

The same applies to the many deceptions in the written documents. In them the white writers deride peoples from non-white countries. Do we just believe everything that we read, or hear? Science and religions – and especially also spirituality, want us to look up things that we come across for the first time. 

If we can’t we should read books widely. This would expose us to more views on the subject. We will then be able to - also externally – argue the correct treatment about the indigenous peoples and remove the contempt and laughter at our forefathers as being backward, primitive, savage and brute among other insulting limited extents of their vision.

What if we cannot test or prove anything externally? What if a person walks down a road and sees a man coming along about 100 hundred meters away and somehow s/he just knows that this person is going to do some evil to /her/him? What would you do? This is called internal perception. Women and spiritual practitioners have this perception more developed than the masses.

It is a form of accurate knowledge, but we can only prove what we are feeling spiritually. This part of perception or pratyaksa is called ‘passive or internal knowledge.’ Internal perception is described as an inner sense. This correct perception does not change. You may remember it as intuition.

Intuition is the spiritual part of truth. This kind of knowledge is found in scriptures but many people who do not have much intuition manifested within themselves, believe what they read in so-called “holy books” as the truth. As one becomes more spiritual, the intuition (inner teaching) will develop, and we will be able to experience the passive truth more directly. This is why all true scriptures tell their viewers to test, prove, examine and explore everything before they believe it.

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The second science and study of Pramanas is called Anumana or Inference. It is the means of reaching a new truth from one or more observations and previous truth/s. Reason is a main deductive principle. An example of Inference is when one infers that there is a fire somewhere where smoke is seen. This is an easy example because it is well known that we cannot have smoke without fire. 

The method of Inference is explained by Indian texts as consisting of three parts:

1.      Hypothesis (pratijna). “A Hypothesis is an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument: an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action: a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

2.      A Reason (hetu). A Reason is a “statement offered in explanation or justification: a rational ground or motive: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defence: something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact: the thing that makes some fact intelligible: the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking esp. in orderly rational ways.”  Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

3.      Examples (drshtanta). An Example is “a parallel or closely similar case esp. when serving as a precedent or model: an instance (as a problem to be solved) serving to illustrate a rule or precept or to act as an exercise in the application of a rule instance, model.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

All but one of the Hindu philosophies accepts this pramana. Again, allow us to remind you that Buddhism and Western Science use Perception and Inference as the only two methods for providing proof.