Who Was Purandaradas?



Purandaradas (1480–1564) was the founder of the Haridasas, a sect of saint-composers in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, was a devotee (bhakta) of the deity Vishnu.

Aside from the intellectual virtues of Purandaradas' poetry, it is said that the melodic structure of his songs provided the basis for the Karnatic school of Indian music, which is the most popular musical genre in southern India.

Many facets of Purandara Dasa, who is renowned as one of the pioneers of Carnatic music, have captured the public's attention, yet the location of his birth is still a mystery. 

The saint-poet, who is believed to have been born in 1484, is said to have written more than five lakh kritis, keertanas, and ugabhogas in Kannada and Sanskrit. 

Sri Purandara Dasa was a poet, musician, and ardent follower of Lord Krishna. 

He is regarded as the founding figure of Carnatic music. 

At 1494, Purandaradasa was born in Kshemapura in the Shimoga District of Karnataka (there are varying accounts of his birthplace). 

Many people held the opinion that the mystic saint was born in the fortified town of Purandhargad in Pune, Maharashtra. 

However, Malnad cultural aficionados said he was born at Araga, close to Thirthahalli. 

The state government instructed Kannada University to form a five-person committee to investigate the veracity of the birthplace claims made for Purandara Dasa. 

The committee's report was kept a secret. The Purandar fort, which is approximately 50 kilometers from Pune, has proof of several conflicts involving the Marathas, the Mughals, and even the British, but it does not include proof of Purandara Dasa's birth. 

Similar to Araga, there isn't much conclusive inscriptional or archaeological evidence. 

However, there is evidence that the area was a significant province during Vijayanagara authority. 

The majority of the Vijayanagara inscriptions at Shivamogga, according to B L Rice's Epigraphia Carnatica, are connected with the Araga kingdom, or as it is often known, the Male Rajya or hill kingdom, of which Araga, was the capital. In 1975, the Vijayanagara kingdom's Harihara and his four brothers acquired complete authority over the whole old Hoysala empire, according to the Karnataka State Gazetteer of Shimoga District. 

The fourth brother, Marappa, was appointed as the Araga rajya's governor. 

During the reign of the Keladi Nayakas, a dynasty that gained notoriety in the 15th century, Araga also receives a noteworthy mention. 

These facts unequivocally demonstrate Araga's status as a historical center of power and culture. 

There is no more information on the saint poet's birthplace outside these poems. 

The birthplace of Purandara Dasa is now officially recognized as Keshavapura or Kshemapura. 

Three kilometers separate the quiet hamlet from the city of Araga. 

The assertion is supported by sporadic evidence discovered near Dasanagadde, Vartekeri, and Vittalanagundi (located close to Keshavapura). 

A resident of Keshavapura claims to have discovered several artifacts on his property that are even vaguely connected to the mystical poet. 

The property, which is bordered by thickets, has a dried-up brook and hills to the east of it. 

A community may have been there decades or perhaps centuries ago, according to foundation ruins discovered inside the area. 

While a local was cultivating a field, a saint's idol was discovered. 

There have also been several engraved stones, shattered clay pots, and grinding stones discovered here. 

Locals think that before giving up the world and adopting Haridasa philosophy, Purandara Dasa spent his formative years at Araga. 

They contend that the poet engaged in diamond trafficking at Vartekeri, a site with market ruins. 

Additionally, literary evidence points to Purandara Dasa's familiarity with the Malnad tongue. 

During the Keladi Nayaka's reign, honorific titles like Nayaka were popular in Male Rajya. 

Nayaka is a surname that is still often used in and around Araga. 

Although definitive archaeological evidence that unequivocally supports Purandara Dasa's identity or his ancestry has yet to be discovered in Araga, the area was unquestionably a cultural hub in Shivamogga throughout the middle centuries. 


He was the child of Leelavathi and Varadappa Nayaka. 

Wealthy trader Varadappa Nayaka and his wife gave their kid the name Srinivasa Nayaka. 

The young man had a solid education as he grew up and was an expert musician as well as in Kannada and Sanskrit. 

Srinivasa Nayaka was first not inclined to the spiritual path. 

He kept up the family company and expanded it greatly. 

He was a miser who would not give a cent to anybody. 

He was known as Navakoti Narayana, a man of great fortune. 

Tradition holds that a lovely tale explains how Srinivasa Nayaka, the Navaloti Narayana, evolved into Purandara Dasa. 

Poor Brahmins routinely come into Srinivasa Nayaka's store to seek for assistance. 

One day, Srinivasa Nayaka gives him a few useless coins as a deterrent and instructs him not to return. The Brahmin then meets the kind wife of Srinivasa Nayaka. 

She offers the Brahmin her nose stud, a gift from her mother, after being moved by his tale. The Brahmin visits Srinivasa Nayaka and makes an attempt to sell him this diamond. 

Srinivasa Nayaka recognizes his wife's jewelry and locks it up before rushing home. He approaches his wife, explains how he obtained the gem, and strongly insists that she reveal the existence of her nose stud. 

She cannot respond to him, so she prays to Lord Krishna, and amazingly, the gem materializes in her hand. 

Srinivasa Nayaka's life is forever altered by this event, and he comes to understand that the Lord Himself was the one who had come to chastise him. 

Then, he renounces all he has and embarks on a new life with his family. 

Following his renunciation, Srinivasa Nayaka joined the renowned saint Vyasaraja's order and was given the name Purandara Vittala in honor of the Lord of Pandarpur. 

Srinivasa Nayaka acquired the name Purandara Dasa as of that moment. Purandara Dasa had a meager existence and had to beg for food. 

He would begin each morning with a Tamboora in his palms, a Tulasi Mala around his neck, and tinkling anklets on each foot. 

He would perform wonderful melodies he had written himself in honour of Lord Hari as he walked through the streets. 

Everyone who heard the songs was spellbound by their captivating melody and simple, easy-to-understand Kannada lyrics. 

At the end of the day, he would take home whatever he had earned. This was how he lived after he had donated all of his possessions and turned his focus to Bhakthi. 

According to legend, Purandara Dasa wrote over 475,000 Kannada and Sanskrit songs. There are currently only 1000 available. 

The songs of Purandara Dasa reveal his devotion to Lord Narayana, particularly Sri Krishna. 

He sings about a range of experiences in Sri Krishna's life. He also satirizes all the numerous pretensions and vices that are prevalent in society in several of these songs. 

He mocks the fake Bhakthas who display all the outer characteristics of Bhakthi but lack genuine kindness or dedication. Many musicians and poets in Karnataka have been influenced by his entrancingly gorgeous tunes. 

Since Purandara Dasa codified the music system, which was a synthesis of diverse South Indian traditions and the musical science outlined in the Vedas, he is regarded as the founder of Carnatic music. 

He came up with a method for grading classes on how to learn Carnatic music. 84 ragas were recognized by Purandara Dasa. 

Each of his lyrics is an exquisite musical piece. His compositions influenced a wide range of musical genres, including Kritis, Keertans, Padams, and even other obscure styles. 

He had a significant impact on Carnatic music. He had a big impact on Sri Thyagaraja, who paid him respect in his Prahalada Bhakthi Vijayam. 

According to legend, Purandara Dasa lived to be 80 years old. 

He influenced people's hearts with devotion by using the all-pervasive enchantment of music and the medium of colloquial language.

~ Kiran Atma


Hindu Pramanas

     


    A tradition might be critically examined from the inside out or from the outside in. I'll approach it the first manner in this essay. 

    Raising the kinds of questions I'll be asking already suggests a certain detachment from that tradition, but I do it with the intention of promoting conventional ways of thinking rather than pointing out any flaws or limitations it may have. 

    One faces the danger of becoming an overly quick, superficial, or even haughty critic of a long and revered tradition if they live outside the place where that tradition arose and still has strong roots and are exposed to a strong and chronologically and culturally more relevant style of thought. 

    One develops the impression that they are liberated, free of every tradition, and may thus criticize their own. 

    But if that illusion of freedom is false, then criticism is only surface-level. 

    The critic will be forgetting what Gadamer so vividly taught us if he asserts that he is free from all traditions and that he is instead thinking within a new tradition, such as the tradition of (modern) rationality. 

    I will only indirectly discuss the texts that these schools get their inspiration from while discussing the Indian philosophical heritage. 

    Instead, I will focus on the Indian darsanas, the traditional philosophical schools. 

    This choice, which is supported by the use of antiquity, gives us a less unclear discourse to consider and enables us to avoid numerous common mistakes. 

    When discussing Indian philosophy, it's typical to argue, for instance, that it is profoundly spiritual, that its aim is not only intellectual gymnastics but rather the spiritual alteration of one's character, and that philosophy is a tool for achieving moksa, or spiritual emancipation. 

    Such broad assertions are, to put it mildly, quite deceptive; in a well-known interpretation, they may even be untrue. 


    Characteristics of Indian Philosophy


    The following observations might pave the way for a more thorough examination of the characteristics of Indian philosophy:


    1. First and foremost, there is no denying that the Upanisads have a strong spiritual motivation: it is said that realizing the atman will end all suffering in this world and lead to a state of spiritual emancipation (whatever the latter may mean). 

    Even though the darsanas attribute their beliefs and doctrines to the Upanisads, it is sometimes mistaken to fail to discern between their purported spirituality and that of the Upanisads. 

    2. Second, contemplating spiritual issues is not in and of itself spiritual.  This assertion merely serves to reaffirm the kind of thinking it is, not to diminish it. 

    Quâ thought is neither spiritual nor non-spiritual; it may be comprehensive or shallow, daring or conventional, logically rigorous or lacking in rigor, critical or creative. 

    Consider the related statement that perception is not a function of thought. 

    3. Another point often overlooked by proponents of the spiritual nature of the darsanas is that although some of them, at least, acknowledge sabda as a pramana or method of real knowledge, they do not associate sabda with any particular experience. 

    Those who seek to claim that the identification of Sabda as a Pramana is equivalent to agreeing to the spiritual experiences of the "seers" an authoritative position misinterpret this issue, about which the philosophical tradition had considerable clarity. 

    I'll come back to this perplexity later. 


    Cliches like the idea that Indian philosophies rely more on intuition than intellect exhibit the same kind of misconception. 

    Apart from the fact that the terms "intuition" and "intellect" have multiple and overlapping usage, I want to remind individuals who like such clichés that none of the darsanas use the word "intuition," which is a pramana. 

    Without going into any more detail, let me go on to the flattering remarks I want to make. 

    I'll categorize my comments into three groups: those about pramana, or real cognition's methods, those about prameya, or its objectives, and those about the theory's general position, goal, and relationship to other lines of investigation. 


    The Purpose Of Philosophical Theories.


    A philosophical theory must provide a detailed explanation of how things are, but it must also support that description with a theory of evidence, logical justification, and critical evaluation. 

    It must have a philosophy of those theoretical procedures in addition to using facts, reasons, and critical evaluations. 

    It must provide universal responses to issues like: When is a cognitive assertion true? What kind of evidence are appropriate in determining if a cognitive assertion is true? What kinds of reasons for holding certain ideas are acceptable? What standards are acceptable for seriously evaluating competing claims? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the criteria when they conflict? The pramana theory focuses on solving these problems. 

    The fact that all of the darsanas developed their own theories of pramana at some point throughout their evolution is a unique indication of the high degree of intellectual complexity of the darsanas. 

    As is fairly well known, these theories varied not just in terms of how pramana was defined (and the accompanying idea of prama, i.e., actual cognition), but also in terms of how many pramanas there were and what characteristics each one had. 

    Here, I want to call attention to a few standout characteristics that come up in these debates and shed a little, if any, light on the Indian conception of reason. 

    Let's start by pointing out a significant discrepancy in locution, which is not just a question of locution but rather indicates serious fundamental problems. 

    Until recently, it was common in the Western philosophical tradition to question whether knowing comes from reason or experience. 

    The solutions provided by the rationalists and the empiricists were different. 

    These responses, in their different iterations, guided Western philosophy's development. 

    The concepts "reason" and "experience" don't have direct equivalents in Sanskrit philosophical jargon, and the epistemological problem has never been discussed in such broad terms. 

    On the other hand, the issue of whether perception is the sole pramana or if anumana is a pramana was posed, and it is possible that this question will be misunderstood for the one that was just presented in the Western tradition. 

    Neither "perception" nor "anumana" are interchangeable with "experience" or "reason," respectively. 

    Every philosophical school that acknowledged perception as a pramana did so, but many of them did not limit perception to sensory perception, nor did they limit sensory perception to the realm of perceptible characteristics, like color, and material things, like sticks and stones. 

    The ego and its attributes, such as pleasure, suffering, desire, and cognition, universals, such as redness, natural-kind essences, such as cowness, and relations, such as touch and inherence, were among the objects that were considered to be sensually sensed (of a quality in a substance; of a universal in its instances). 

    Anumana, or inference, derives from perception, which makes it obvious that it differs from reason (as used by rationalists). 

    No school of Indian philosophy, excepting Buddhism, assigned inference a "constructive" function. 

    It is aware of what is otherwise knowable. 

    Perception is always given importance. 

    There are no rationalists in India. 

    Unlike "experience" and "reason" in traditional Western philosophy, neither perception nor inference were used to identify any particular mental capacity. 

    In one instance, perception was the consequence of the same abilities or cognitive tools acting in a different way; in another, inference was the result. 

    I've elaborated on this topic to warn against the tendency to identify close relatives of Western epistemologies in pramana theories. 


    What Is Pramana?

    The words that came before point to another aspect of the pramana ideas. 

    A pramana is the particular cause of a real cognition or irreducible inherently. 

    There are two distinct types of justifications for a pramana not being accepted by a certain school. 

    1. Some Buddhists do not consider inference to be a pramana for this reason: an inferential cognition perceives its object as an instance of a universal rule and not in its uniqueness, and is thus not true to its object's own nature. 
    2. Another reason is that the type of cognition it causes is simply not true cognition. However, there are many more explanations for why a purported pramana is not really one. 

    The Vaisesikas stress that the supposed linguistically created cognition is not of an irreducible kind, but rather reducible to inference. In doing so, they do not dispute the truth of the putative linguistically generated cognition. 


    What Constitutes A Pramana?

    A pramana hypothesis so makes the following three claims: 

    (1) Some cognitions are true, or prama; 

    (2) Some of these true cognitions fall under a type that cannot be reduced to any other type; and 

    (3) True cognitions of such an irreducible type are brought about by a particular collection of causal circumstances. 


    As a result, the pramana theory incorporates a kind of causal theory of knowledge:1 a valid cognition must not only be true to its object (arthavyabhicarin), but it must also be formed correctly, that is, by the proper causes. 

    This may be stated in terms of current philosophy as follows: S has a cognitive state of the type "p" if this cognitive state is true and if it is produced in the appropriate manner. 

    This last explanation in terms of a mental state brings me to the third aspect I want to highlight. 


    Pramanas As Causes And Defenses For Cognitive Experiences.

    The dualism of mind and matter, the subjective and the objective, has divided Western thinking since at least Descartes, in addition to the competing claims of reason and experience. 

    The separation between the private and public is one of the offsprings of the latter division. 

    This has become known as the psychologism issue in more contemporary philosophical thought. 

    The ghost of psychologism has haunted epistemology and theory of logic, and both fields have made efforts to exclude any mention of inner mental states from their language. 

    Pure objectivism, whether of the Platonic or physicalist kind, has been the result. 

    In contrast, Indian epistemologists have openly employed "mentalistic" discourse and haven't given much thought to issues with psychologism, private language, etc. 

    You might just charge them with being uncritically naive. 

    But given their sharpened critical faculties, it is necessary to look elsewhere for the causes. 

    It is generally known that for the majority of Indian philosophers, the mind (if manas is to be interpreted that way) is more of a delicate kind of prakrti or matter, an unconscious inner sense organ, rather than a space for personal experiences. 

    Only the self, or atman, has the ability to "perceive" the thoughts and other experiences that belong to them (if self-manifesting, then so only to the owner). 

    However, it does not necessarily follow that no one else can know them through any of the pramanas other than perception if S is the only one with an internal perception of his experience. 

    Additionally, these episodes have their ideal purposeful contents, which numerically unique episodes belonging to different owners and occurring at various temporal locations may share. 

    This is true even if they are owned by the same person. 

    I've shown in other places how, given this idea of "mental episodes," it is possible to create a logic of cognitions with the proper logical rules for inference. 

    Therefore, discussing a cognitive experience should not raise the specter of psychologizing. 

    The causal story that permeates Indian epistemologies was mentioned earlier. 

    It is now able to take a closer look at it. 

    It has become customary to clearly distinguish between questions of causal origin and questions of epistemic justification, possibly since Kant (quaestio factis). 


    Causal Theory Of Knowledge.

    A causal theory of knowledge has only recently become very popular, but causal theories of knowledge must be able to accommodate justificatory concepts like truth and logical validity. 

    Indian epistemologies might be used as a valuable example in this respect. 

    The pramanas act as both causes and defenses for cognitive episodes, as B. K. Matilal emphasized in his most recent book on perception. 


    This, in my opinion, was made possible by first separating out non-controversial instances of true cognitions from similar instances of false cognitions, searching simultaneously for

    (1) the marks that distinguish the former from the latter, and 

    (2) the distinctive causal conditions that produce the former and not the latter, 

    and finally combining (1) and (2) in the definition of pramana. 


    The causal conditions producing cognitions (of a certain type) and those producing true cognitions (of that type) coincide in theories that view truth as svatah. 

    The logician-cum-epistemologist believes that causal theories are problematic since they are infamously reductionistic. 


    When Causal Theories Suffice.

    According to Indian tradition, which saw them as descriptive and consistent with cognitions' distinctiveness and claim to reality. 

    There are two aspects to this liberalism: first, whereas the causal laws used by Indian epistemologists are formulated in terms of such heterogeneous elements as physical contacts, revived memories, and desires to have a certain kind of knowledge, for example—if needed, even activation of traces of past karma and the pervasive passage of time—reductionist causal laws are physicalistic and oriented to the prevailing physical theory. 

    Second, such a causal story is descriptive rather than explanatory because it is written to conform to the intuitive requirements of a cognitive event rather than to the limitations of an existing physical theory. 

    The general restrictions resembled those of a significant ontological theory. 

    Before moving on to the prameya theory, or ontology, I will only make two more remarks about the pramana theory. 

    In that order, these two comments will address anumana (or inference) and sabda (word). 

    In the secondary literature, it has been extensively discussed how the Indian theory of anumana is nonformal (it tells a story about how inferential cognition arises) and psychological (it requires an instance where the universal major premise is satisfied). 

    Both descriptions are accurate, but unless properly understood, they run the risk of misleading. 

    I've already discussed how Indian thought combined logic and psychology. 

    This viewpoint is well shown by the theory of inference. 

    The reconciliation of psychology and logic was achieved through both the logicization of psychology and the psychologization of logic: 

    the former by assuming that the psychological process of reasoning conforms to the logical (any apparent deviation, such as in allegedly fallacious reasoning, being due to misconstrual of the premises); and the latter by turning logic into a logic of cognitions rather than of propositions. 

    The Indian theory of anumana is not ignorant of formal validity, though. 

    In actuality, a valid Nyaya anumana can be abstracted from a valid mood. 

    The merely formally valid inference, such as in tarka or counterfactuals, was ignored because the focus was on cognitions (rather than sentences or propositions), and anumana as a promana, as a source of true cognition. 

    This brings me to the idea of the word, or sabda, as a pramana, or a source of genuine cognition. 

    The deeper roots and true pillars of the Hindu tradition are actually found here. 

    The Indian epistemologies already have a novel feature in the simple recognition of sabda as a pramana. 

    Perception, reasoning, introspection, and memory are among the types of knowledge that are acknowledged by Western epistemologies. 

    Many philosophers today emphasize the crucial part that language plays in forming our knowledge. 

    But as far as I'm aware, no one regards language—or verbal utterance—as a stand-alone method of learning about the outside world. 

    And yet, how much do we really know only by listening to people, reading books, and other things—not to mention our religious and moral convictions that come from studying the scriptures? Indian epistemologies acknowledged sabda (listening to a competent speaker's utterances) not only as a pramana but also as the key source of our cognitions about all those things that go beyond the bounds of what is feasible for sensory experience. 


    The following are some features of the sabda-pramana theory that I want to highlight. 


    1. First off, sabda, as a pramana, is not just a word; it is a sentence, and that sentence is spoken, not written. 

    Without a doubt, the spoken and the heard take precedence over the written. 

    2. Second, most Indian theorists place more emphasis on imperative than indicative phrases when it comes to language development. 

    The purpose of the sentence utterances is primarily—if not exclusively—to give orders, recommend actions that should be taken or avoided, and other similar tasks, rather than to state facts. 

    3. Thirdly, most Indian theorists adhere to a pure referential theory of meaning (both for words and for sentences) and lack a concept of sense as opposed to reference. 

    (Several individuals have attempted to demonstrate where to look for such a theory of sense since I made this diagnosis 20 years ago. 

    Mark Siderits' attempt is the most convincing of these attempts. 

    I believe my general diagnosis is accurate, even though Siderits is correct in tracing a sort of sense theory to the Buddhist apoha theory.) 


    The difference between understanding and knowing can be blurred in the theory of sabdapramana thanks to a direct referential theory. 

    The Nyaya literature is full of translations of meaningless phrases like "hare's horn," but the real obstacle to the theory is the lack of a tenable explanation for what it means to comprehend a false sentence. 

    If the Naiyayika are to be consistent, abdapramana must be fundamentally true. 

    False sentences are unable to produce understanding (sabdabodha), let alone prama. 

    However, theoretically speaking, sabdabadha and sabdajanyaprama are identical. 

    It is all too clear that this identification creates enormous problems. 


    4. Fourthly, the claim that sabda is an irreducible pramana is most strongly supported in the field of what should and shouldn't be done. 

    If factual facts may potentially be proven by observation or some type of reasoning, it is reasonable to assert that the only way we can know what is right and wrong is through vocal instruction, whether it be written or spoken, from moral authorities, wise people, or the scriptures. 

    The assertion that the sacred, well-known scriptures (the Vedas and the Upanisads) are apauruseya, or that they were not written by any human author, is a significant one that solidly supports tradition. 

    This grants them an authority that no text by a human author could support—one that is free from any possibility of fault and cannot be changed. 

    At the conclusion of this article, I will revisit the idea of "apauruseyatva." 


    Pramana Theories.

    What kinds of prameya theories, or potential sources of true knowledge, did Indian philosophers hold? 

    What can be done at this point, given the wide range of ontologies—from the pluralism of Nyaya-Vaisesika to the monism of Advaita Vedanta—is to call attention to some important aspects of those ontologies. 

    First of all, it should be recognized that these ontologies do not accept any abstract entities of the kind that Western ontologies do. 

    We have Fregean senses (such as propositions), numbers, and universais among the common abstract objects. 

    I've already stated that, in my opinion, there are no fully developed Fregean senses. 

    Numbers are reduced to the characteristics of sets (gunas). 

    Although universals are widespread, they are not the kind of rarefied beings that can only be understood through the use of reason, as they are understood in the Western metaphysical tradition. 

    They are perceived through the same sense organ that their instances are, making them somewhat more concrete entities. 

    There are also no purely hypothetical possibilities. 

    It is not surprising that these last creatures are absent because, contrary to Indian thought, God's mind, which serves as their habitat in Western metaphysical tradition, does not have the ability to create something out of nothing. 

    Some standard concepts of necessary truth and its opposite contingent truth simply cannot find any formulation in the Indian systems due to the lack of possibilia and abstract entities such as propositions. 

    We therefore have descriptions of what the world actually is, but not of what might have been or what might not possibly have been. 

    Remember that the typical expression of vyapti is extensional rather than modal ("It is impossible that..."): "It is never the case that in all those loci where smoke is present, fire is absent." The fact that science and metaphysics have stood sharply apart since the beginning of metaphysics in Aristotle is one reason why the metaphysical scheme in traditional Western metaphysics claimed a sort of necessity over and against those features of the world that the sciences study. 

    According to this argument, metaphysics is not concerned with beings but rather with being quâ being, which is defined in a number of well-known ways (for example, as the highest being, the most general predicates or categories, or the definition of the word "being"). 

    Science and metaphysics are still intertwined in the minds of Indian metaphysicians. 

    Both both out to comprehend how the universe is organized; the main difference is in the generality of their approaches. 


    Advaita Vedanta As An Exception.


    The only exception to this rule is Advaita Vedanta, which holds that since there is only one Being at work beneath all things, metaphysics—if that is what para vidya needs to be called, which is highly dubious—is the study of that Being. 

    If creation from nothing, and thus creation in the strict sense, has no place in Indian thought, then this is not merely a peripheral phenomenon for the darsanas; rather, it determines some very central features of not only the Indian cosmologies but also of the metaphysical concepts of God, substance, time, and negation, as I believe it can be demonstrated. 

    Unfortunately, I am unable to look into that issue at this time. 


    The Pramana-Prameya Structure

    In this final and concluding section, I'd like to discuss the entire pramana-prameya structure, or the philosophical endeavor as it is represented in the darsanas. 

    The Indian philosophers were working on extremely complex philosophical issues, but they weren't explicitly and consciously concentrating on the nature of their work. 

    It is normally in reaction to the skeptical criticisms of a Madhyamika that occasionally they would, while justifying their business, comment on the nature of what they would be doing. 


    Without delving into linguistic specifics, let me mention some of the important points. 


    1. The Madhyamika critique includes an ontology critique in addition to an epistemology critique. 

    The critic argues that they are dependent on one another. 

    Without first deciding what needs to be known, you cannot determine what the pramanas are. 

    And until you have the knowledge necessary on hand, you cannot answer the second question. 

    So where do you start? Why not abandon the whole endeavor if the cycle cannot be broken?

     

    2. In response to this challenge, the pramana-prameya theorist has stated, in brief, that it assumes an unnecessarily strong reading of the unity of the two parts of a darsana. 

    A pramana's relationship to its prameya is not one-to-one. 

    More than one pramana can have knowledge of the same thing. 

    Consider the Nyaya and the Vaisesika for an example of how one and the same ontology system can be made to work with various epistemologies. 

    By defining both and creating a many-one or one-many relation between terms on each side, it is possible to overcome the mutual dependence that jeopardizes the relationship between cognition and object in general. 


    3. According to (2), a darsana is not a seamless whole that cannot have portions removed from the context of that system. 

    My interpretation conflicts with the traditionalists' interpretation, which treats each darsana as a distinct viewpoint. 

    The Russian immigrant David Zilberman held this comprehensive view of a darsana, which I reject here. 

    His untimely death was a serious loss to Indian philosophy. 

     

    4. Although it is not stated explicitly, practice suggests that this is frequently the case, the reflective question of what kind of knowledge a philosophical system itself yields (or amounts to) and whether it can be appropriated into one or more of the pramanas recognized by the system was chosen. 

    The reason was a failure to recognize that philosophical knowledge is a type of knowledge that is, quâ knowledge, distinct from the types of knowledge that are thematized within the system. 

    This was already alluded to earlier. 

    In light of the purely referential theory of meaning, an alternative solution that would have involved drawing a distinction between understanding and knowing (where philosophy produces understanding but not knowledge) was not feasible. 

    The knowledge of brahman is such that both the knowledge and the entity of which it is knowledge are thematized within the system, according to the Vedantin, who claims that this knowledge leads to moksa. 

    What kind of cognition is meant when the Nyaya Stra claims that understanding the sixteen padarthas results in the highest good? Are there one or more pramanas involved? It appears that the answer is "yes." 

     

    5. Students of the darsanas frequently ponder where the framework (the list of pramanas and prameyas) that the later authors continued to refine was derived by the early masters, the authors of the stras and Bhasyas. 

    It does not allay that anxiety to say that they elaborated a way of seeing using the verbal root "drs" (= to see). 

    In any case, it is untrue that the later writers merely improved and clarified the framework put forth by the forefathers. 

    The more typical answer was to trace the framework back to the sruti, although they did tweak and modify it within reasonable bounds (which also argues against a strong holistic interpretation of the darsanas) (the heard texts with no human author). 

    Think about the intellectual phenomenon whereby philosophical systems as different as Vedanta and Nyaya claimed sruti affiliation. 


    So how should the nature of sabdapramana be understood in order to make sense of this paradoxical situation? 

    The nature of sabdapramana as applied to sruti should, in my opinion, be understood for this purpose in a way that is implicit in the tradition's understanding of itself but is not explicitly stated as such. 

    In my interpretation of the function of sruti in relation to philosophies, I deviate from the conventional wisdom in this area. 

    The sruti's apauruseyatva does not, in my opinion, imply that the texts are not composed at all or that they represent some extraordinary, mystical experience. 

    Not the first, both because there is sufficient internal evidence that the texts were written and because a literal interpretation would be absurd. 

    Not the second, because in my opinion, sentences express thoughts rather than experiences. 

    Although this is not the appropriate time, I would like to defend the last thesis. 

    Setting aside these two frequently accepted views, I want to offer the following. 

    First, considering the authors' intentions is completely irrelevant and useless when attempting to understand the sruti texts. 

    Insofar as they are readily available to us and serve to define the tradition for us, the texts, or the words themselves, are primary. 

    We interpret those words by using them to describe our experiences, the outside world, and ourselves. 

    While conventional wisdom assigns the sruti's words whatever meaning it deems appropriate, I leave room for interpretation. 

    It is this fluidity of meaning, this unending potential of interpretation, the ongoing challenge they offer to us, which sets the words of the sruti apart from those of smrti . 

    They are fundamental not because they represent facts which are unassailable, but because they describe the framework within which the Hindu philosophers posed questions, comprehended their concerns, and judged their replies. 

    In this sense, sabda (like sruti) is not itself a pramana , but underlying the latter's uses. 

    Apauruseyasruti is not the highest pramana , infallible and risen above all the others. 

    Instead, it is the origin of all questions and worries (source, not solution) for which the various pramanas show a unique philosophical relevance. 

    So, who is adopting that tradition in their thinking? My response is that sharing the concerns as sources of philosophical issues is what is required, not thinking traditionally or adhering to any or all of the schools' responses. 

    Thus, rather than defining the tradition in terms of beliefs, I describe it in terms of concerns.


    ~Kiran Atma




    Hinduism - Who Was Ramanuja?


      Who Was Ramanuja?


      Ramanuja was a Southern Indian philosopher and the most important figure in the Shrivaishnava religious community in the 11th century.

      He was the greatest exponent of the philosophical position known as Vishishthadvaita ("qualified non-dualism") Vedanta, the core tenet of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy and the most important figure in the Shrivaishnava religious community.

      Ramanuja spent the most of his life at the temple town of Shrirangam in Tamil Nadu, where he served the temple's resident god, Ranganatha, a form of Vishnu.

      Ramanuja believed that Brahman, or Supreme Reality, was a personal god rather than an impersonal abstract concept, and that the most significant kind of religious activity one could perform was devotion (bhakti).

      His philosophical viewpoint, Vishishthadvaita Vedanta, emphasized both of these principles.

      God, according to Ramanuja, is entirely transcendent and without flaws in his basic essence.

      A notion taken from the Samkhya philosophical tradition is that the universe evolves from God via a process of evolution.

      The universe is therefore like God in that it comes from him, but it is also unlike him in that matter is unaware and insentient.

      Human beings, too, are comparable to God in nature since they have him as their source, yet they are susceptible to ignorance and suffering, unlike God.

      God, according to Ramanuja and his followers, is not the same as human beings or the earth, all of which are said to exist in their own right.

      Due to the differences in capability between God and humans, dedication is the most efficient way to achieve eventual soul liberation (moksha), which is defined as everlasting fellowship with God.


      What Is The Philosophy Of Ramanuja?


      A Brahmin initiate into the theistic and devotional South Indian Sri Vaisnava tradition, Ramanuja lived from from 1075 to 1140 AD. 

      Members of that tradition hold him in high regard as the theologian and scriptural interpreter who, in the tradition of Nathamuni (c. 900-950) and Yamuna (c. 966–1038), provided a strong and thorough theological and philosophical defense and articulation of their beliefs and practices in the system that would later become known as Visistsadvaita Vedanta. 


      What Is The Advaita Vedanta Tradition?

      The Advaita Vedanta tradition of scriptural exegesis, which maintains that the significance of those texts is the identity of the soul (atman) and the ground of being (Brahman), and that all experience of difference is the ultimately unreal result of ignorance or misunderstanding, was challenged in this (avidya). 

      Nothing in Vedanta, whether theistic or not, could ever be the same again as a result of his achievement in this area. 


      What Are The Beliefs Of The Vaisnava Sect?

      The Sri Vaisnava sect gets its identity from the fusion of traditional Vedantic components with sectarian Tantric (non-Vedic) Pancaratra temple ritual and theology, emotional devotionalism (bhakti) toward a personal god with characteristics (saguna), and Tamil Alvar poets. 

      The Pancaratra texts serve as a framework for the sect's liturgical activity (agama). 

      In the temple image, there is a focus on the immanent presence of the divine in creation (arcavatara). 


      Was The Alvar Worship Open To All Of Society?

      The Alvars' devotionalism is open to all social groups. Everyone is welcome to a relationship with God, regardless of caste or gender. 

      The songs portray a deep yearning for God, the "agony of separation" from him, and the joy of reestablished contact. 

      Vedanta, also known as the science of Brahman or the absolute reality, is the systematic exegesis and elucidation of those sections (the jnana-kanda) of the purportedly timeless and infallible Vedic sacred texts known as Upanisads that address in various ways such metaphysical issues as the nature of the absolute principle and summum bonum underlying the cosmos, the nature and destiny of the essential self (atman). 

      Its foundational text is the Brahmasutra, attributed to Badarayana in the second century A.D., which summarizes the major Upanisadic themes in a way that is easily remembered but inevitably highly ambiguous (given the aphoristic nature of the sutra genre), much like the Mimamsa sutras, attributed to Jaimini in the 100s A.D., which summarizes those sections of the Vedas (the karma- Vedanta is also known as Uttara Mimamsa (Later Exegesis). 

      Insofar as the road of ritual activity came to be viewed as antecedent and propaedeutic to the path of knowledge, the ritualist received the title Purva Mimamsa (Previous Enquiry). 


      Did Ramanuja Help Transform Non-Vedic Traditions To Vedic Traditions?

      Ramanuja is a key player in the non-Vedic tradition's transformation into a Vedic tradition. 

      The Upanishads, the Brahmasutras, and the Bhagavad Gita serve as the fundamental sources for the ancient Vedantic tradition, which he attempted to harmonize with the principles of his bhakti religion. 

      The most important of the criteria for Hindu Brahminical orthodoxy (smarta), which also include the acceptance of the Vedically derived social and religious obligations unique to hereditary caste members (varnashrama dharma) and the eternity of an essential principle in man (atman), is the Veda's authority. 


      What Is Vedanticization?

      Vedanticization is the process of articulating sectarian traditions' theory and practice in terms of a broadly accepted philosophy and code of conduct that has been upheld by the main Vedantic tradition. 

      Ramanuja argued for the Vedantic validity of his bhakti religion by writing commentary on the Brahmasutras and the Gita. 

      His theistic and dualistic readings of the Upanisads gave popular devotional religion a classical foundation. 

      Yamuna had created the groundwork for such an endeavor by using Tamil religious literature. 

      He aimed to show in his Siddhitraya that the fundamental self (atman) possesses a personal existence. 

      He promoted the idea of effects being the realm of material things. 

      He maintained that God is the right object of one's devotion since He has attributes of a personal kind. 

      In his Gitarthasamgraha, he argued that the Gita's fundamental goal is to instill bhakti as the only way to achieve liberation, which entails an intimate, loving connection with God in which the individual self is preserved. 

      Since the Upanisads are considered to be completely infallible with respect to the transcendent, synthesizing beliefs with the Vedantic worldview gives them the sanction of antiquity and ensures their reality. 

      The Vedantic language suggests that teachings have an unwavering, everlasting validity. 

      Vedanticization, or the notion that one's tradition has a foundation that is eternally and inherently legitimate, gives one a stronger base on which to develop their religious life. 


      How Was Ramanuja's Philosophy Pan-Indian?

      A theological system may have pan-Indian currency among the educated thanks to the usage of Sanskrit

      Nathamuni and Yamuna started the process, which Ramanuja reinforced. 

      We see a constant endeavor on their part to further the Sanskritization of the bhakti religion. 

      The worshipper's adoring contemplation of God in his heaven is equivalent to moksha (release from the cycle of births), and the acts of worship and veneration are on par with the rites outlined by scripture and tradition. 

      This is how the God of the bakhta is equated with the supreme principle of the Upanishads. 

      It has been claimed persuasively that Yamuna was a self-aware representative of a Pancaratrika Vedanta, who asserted that the sectarian Vaisnava Pancaratra writings are equivalent in authority to the Vedic texts. 

      Using literature that had never before been included in Vedanta or Uttara-Mimamsa, such as the Pancaratra Agamas, which was viewed as a "easily understood" divine revelation, he created a theistic Vedanta. 

      Ramanuja can't be stated to be the same. He is so preoccupied with proving Sri Vaisnavism's Vedantic validity that Pancaratra is left in the background. 

      Only while justifying the compatibility of that tradition with Vedic culture does he make reference to Pancaratra scriptures (SBh.2.2.40–43). 

      He makes no mention of the openly sectarian Vaisnava Bhagavata Purana for the same reason. 


      Ramanuja And The Tamil Veda.

      The Divya Prabandha, sometimes referred to as the Tamil version of the Veda, was compiled by Nathamuni from the passionate songs of the Alvars and utilized in temple worship. 

      Ramanuja doesn't mention the "Tamil Veda" at all. He views bhakti as an intellectual and philosophical phenomena rather than an emotional one. 

      In his conservative view, dedication must be placed within the framework of social and religious commitments. 

      However, there are clear parallels between his realistic and pluralistic metaphysics and the bhakti religion. 

      In the end, monistic Advaita-Vedanta is opposed to bhakti. 

      Ramanuja had to demonstrate that revealed scripture (shruti) and authoritative tradition (smruti), not the Advaitins' religion, was what was taught. 

      In order to do this, he critiqued the intellectual underpinnings of monism and offered theistic and dualistic readings of Upanisadic scriptures. 


      What Is Ramnuja's Visistsadvaita or Vedanta?

      The philosophy he developed, known as Visistsadvaita or Vedanta, is based on the premise that all conscious souls and material beings are one with and in God, who they are inextricably reliant upon since they make up the divine body. 

      Vedanta is the aphoristic summary of the Upanisads' significance found in the Brahmasutras and the systematic hermeneutic of the Upanisads. 

      The Vedantic theologian views himself as a scriptural exegete who draws theological conclusions from a body of scripture that is intrinsically valid (svatah pramanya), independent of God (although, according to Ramanuja, promulgated by the deity at the beginning of a cycle of cosmic emanation), and our only source of knowledge regarding the nature of whom it is (pramana). 

      The Vedic language is ageless, and its meaning is not dependent on any given situation, although it is acknowledged that it is difficult to grasp and requires interpretive clarification. 


      What Is The Significance Of Sampradaya In Vedanta?

      According to Vedanta, a prerequisite for a correct reading of the scriptures is adhering to an established religious tradition (sampradaya). 

      Tradition shouldn't breed damaging bias but rather awareness. Originality in theology is a flaw. 

      The theologian's endeavor, which entails the methodical explication of accepted concepts, is one of preservation. 

      The inherent (autpattika) and unchangeable (nitya) relationship between a Vedic term and the referent in which it participates metaphysically is the source of the infallible authority of text. 

      It was assumed that Sanskrit words were not only symbols for their objects, but also integral parts of them. 

      Neither supernatural intervention nor human convention have been able to mend the link. 


      The Vedas Are Considered A Revelation.

      Vedic speech is "non-personal" (apauruseya). 

      There is neither a divine nor a human author of the Vedas. 

      They are not a divine self-revelation, even yet they are the sole source of information about God. 

      The Purva-Mimamsaka theorists, whose primary religious concern was the clarification of those sections (the karma-kanda) of the intrinsically valid but frequently cryptic and ambiguous Vedic texts that are the only source of knowledge about those ritual performances which are an essential component of the cosmic order (dharma), developed these theories regarding the authority of the Vedas. 


      The Vedas Are Regarded As Infallible.

      The Vedas are regarded as being infallible in theory since all cognitions are taken for granted as true just by virtue of their occurrence and remain true unless refuted. 

      The Mimamsakas were atheists who believed that the universe's stability and human well-being in this world and the next (both covered by dharma) resulted from the disinterested conduct of Vedic rituals, whose proper execution would inevitably have beneficial effects. 

      While certain rituals (kamya) might be conducted with a particular goal in mind, the most important ones were to be carried out in a spirit of obligation for the sake of duty, independent of any particular benefits. 

      Those "twice-born" men (i.e., members of the higher three castes who have undergone the upanayana ceremony of initiation entitling them to participate in Vedic ritual) with the necessary qualification for legitimate access to the rituals (adhikara), according to the Prabhakara school of Mimamsa, are moved to action in the manner of categorical imperatives by the prescriptions enjoining them (vidhi or niyog Indicative, descriptive, or fact-asserting scriptural statements are to be construed as praising the sacrifice or explaining the mode of its performance, according to the Prabhakaras, who also held that only those scriptural statements that are injunctions bearing upon the essential rituals (karya — "things to be done") are an authoritative source of new knowledge (pramana). 


      Siddha And Sadhya.

      They are not authority for things that are already established (siddha) and do not need creation (sadhya), since they are the purview of knowledge-producing mechanisms like perception and inference. 

      As a result, the language of the scriptures cannot be considered authoritative in regards to Brahman. 

      They provide evidence for this by saying that all language has meaning when it is connected to an action. 

      They support a semantic theory known as "associated designation" (anvitabhidhana), which carries the weight that a word only has meaning when it is used in a sentence. 

      The Prabhakaras adopted an anti-realist stance, exemplified by their epistemically constrained definition of reality (satta), which they defined as anything that exists and is amenable to connection with valid cognition (pramana sambandha yogyata). 

      This definition is consistent with their view that reality is something that must be brought about in accordance with the dictates of Vedic injunction. 

      Insofar as it depends on following set rituals, the universe is truly of our creation. 


      A Theory Of Truth.

      A pragmatic theory of truth, which holds that knowledge is useful for directing action whereas mistake is worthless in that regard, complements this point of view. 

      In response, Ramanuja argues that effective action requires language with informational significance, which is often fact-assertive and descriptive. 

      Even if the Vedic jnana-kanda, the Upanisadic books, are taken as commandments that forbid meditation on Brahman, they can only do so if they have previously proven its existence. 

      According to Ramanuja, learning the meanings of words involves an ostensive defining process that results in the creation of an idea (buddhyutpatti) of the words' referents. 

      The young child learns that all words convey their intended meanings and that some word combinations signify various types of unforced linkages between basic items. 

      Thus, he holds to the kind of semantic theory (abhihitanvayavada) put out by the Mimamsaka direct realist Kumarila (c. 650 A.D.), which may be summarized as the idea that a phrase is made up of a string of word meanings that have previously been articulated singly. 

      The fundamental units of meaning are words as individual expressions of general characteristics. 

      A sentence is made up of a collection of distinct words, each of which, taken alone, designates a set of discrete objects, which serves as the main epistemological "given." 

      These words then each separately and serially express one of their proper senses, which are then combined to create a further syntactically connected whole, the purport (tatparya), of the sentence, which stands for a particular person or situation. 

      The grammar (anvaya) of the words' explicitly articulated (abhihita) meanings provides the purport. 

      The intent is particular even if the individual word meanings are universal. 

      It is important to note that they consider the Vedic commands as hypothetical imperatives that only apply to eligible individuals (high-caste men) who have an interest in the specific purposes they define. 

      The logic, epistemology, and metaphysics of the Nyaya-Vaisesika school acknowledged the inspiration of scripture as God's written word. 

      As a result, its validity is external. 

      They rejected the idea that the scriptures alone could answer questions concerning the nature of God and the soul and instead argued that inferential reasoning could be used to prove Isvara and atman's existence and characteristics. 

      They only sometimes used the scriptures to support a point that had previously been made by logical reasoning. 

      They were unable to make an argument for God's existence only based on the scriptures due to the danger of becoming circular. 


      Ramanuja As A Metaphysical And Epistemological Realist.


      Ramanuja is a realist in both metaphysics and epistemology.  Here, I briefly discuss some aspects of both realism and anti-realism in order to distinguish between them and how they restrict what is possible within the confines of language or human comprehension. 

      At its core, realism is the expression of a natural human desire to see beyond appearances that are caused by our limited human perspective on the universe and to get at a genuine perception of reality as it is in itself. 

      Any discussion of a reality that is incomprehensible to our cognitive abilities is questioned by the anti-realist. 

      As a result, "to be" is to be intelligible to us. 

      Such theories include idealism, which entails the mental nature of the ostensibly physical and the exhaustive reduction of everything to states of consciousness; phenomenalism, which holds that familiar physical objects can be reduced to human sensory stimulations; representationalism, which holds that what we are immediately aware of are sensory and mental impressions standing in causal relations to objects; and the type of semantic anti-realism propagated by the semantic anti-realism movement. 

      A realist philosophy, however, may include any or all of the following characteristics: There is an objective, mind-free world. 

      That is to say, even in the absence of occupied human subjective standpoints attesting to their existence, things proposed by an ontology as belonging to a domain exist, truths are true, and situations of events exist. 

      There may be more than we can comprehend or imagine. 

      In other words, certain facts are unreachable to humans. 

      While the degree of connection between our ideas and the outside world is decided independently of human cognitive activity, we are nonetheless capable of accurately imagining and understanding the human surroundings. 

      We often discuss actual objects rather than ideas, concepts, sensory data, or mental sensations. 

      Never are the objects of sense primarily cerebral and non-physical. 

      A universe of mindless physical things is seen as real until that view is refuted by another perception. 

      Similar to how they seem to humans, familiar macroscopic things would also appear the same to species with diverse sensory modalities. 

      (Epistemological realism or realistic common sense) Initially, consciousness is unformed, passive, and receptive. 

      Language and innate concepts do not significantly organize or perhaps even distort the sensory outputs. 

      According to facts about the mind-independent sphere, every proposition is categorically either true or false (realist empiricism). 

      Truth is some kind of relationship between ideas, words, and circumstances. 

      True thoughts and phrases have a representation that is structurally isomorphic to extra-mental reality. 

      Complex true cognitions depict complex situations of events and are causally connected to them. 

      True concept-laden cognition provides more information about the reality. 

      It does not alter or remove us from reality. 

      Certain sorts of property, like abstract universals, exist apart from the human mind and language. 

      (Platonism and the Naiyayika theory of universals, which Ramanuja does not agree with.) It is not possible to reduce claims about one domain (such as the mental) to statements about another kind of domain (e.g.  the physical).


      References And Further Reading:

      • A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, edited by Sarvepalli Radha Krishnan and Charles A. Moore, 1957.
      • John B. Carman, The Theology of Ramanuja, 1974.


      ~Kiran Atma