Pratyaksa anumana agamah pramanani
Valid cognition is based on direct observation, inference and reference to reliable authorities.
The mind understands the situation directly using the senses. This is perception. Everyone’s perception of the same situation is different as other faculties like logic and memory are brought in to make sense of what is being observed. When we are in a State of Yoga, we understand the situation correctly with clarity. When there is not enough information to go by, the mind uses inference to fill in the gaps. Inferences may be wrong.
When we see fire, the mind understands it as fire. When we see smoke, the mind infers there must have been fire. My teacher used the story of the mongoose from Panchatantra to explain inference. This is something the mind thinks is correct, until more information becomes available.
One other way to understand something is taking help from an expert, or acceptable authority. Even though I cannot prove that the sun rises in the east, I accept the findings of the experts. This is agamah, which is to accept a reliable information.
Pratyaksa anumana agamah pramanani
pratyaksa – perception from prati + aksa is eye
anumana – inference from anu + ma is to measure
agama – literally coming up, here it means testimony, from a + gam is to go
pramana – valid cognition
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Hola Sraddha !
I like the story of the mongoose, it is a very good example of wrong inference. But sometimes even our own perception is wrong, and we have to rely on inference; as Sankara says, we all perceive the sun to be small, but our perception in this case is contradicted by inference, and we have to admit that our perceptions are erroneous. When can we rely on inference? It is necessary a special relationship (vyapti) between hetu (smoke) and sadhya (fire); nyaya philosophy describes this relationship in deep.
Even using agamah, or reliable information, everyday (one of my favorites sources of knowledge is wikipedia…), I think that this is the worst mean of ‘right’ knowledge; Krishnamurti says that it is impossible to tell the truth using symbols (like words) because symbols need to be decoded, and everyone do this in a different way, so there are many ways to “understand” the truth (that is why the Buddha said that it isn’t possible to preach the truth)…Maybe we can only find the truth looking for it inside us, using perception and inference; we use to accept a lot of things without hesitation, just because they are in books, or newspapers, or TV (just because is the easy way)…and we are forgetting this good old habit of “thinking”
Hanuman ki Jai!
I like Sankara’s explanation of inference. I agree perception of the same situation is different for each and every person. I agree with you on using the reliable sources way too much, just because it is the easy way out.
When it comes to Sri Krishnamcharya, he did not take everything from the vedas or his gurus, even though they were quite reliable. He would actually experiment with a lot of things. He would disagree with things that he thought were wrong. He simply did not take everything for granted. Some of the later parts of Veda says that women cannot practice Vedic chanting. But Sri Krishnamcharya used an example from the Vedas that says a queen used to be very good at chanting in the old days and he opened Vedic chanting to women. I personally think women are way better at chanting than men : )
I absolutely agree with you on women chanting better than men !! (and also on Sri Krishnamacharya)