Classical Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Hiranyagarbha is known as Prajāpati.

Hiranyagarbha, the 'golden germ' or cosmic egg, is the first-born creative principle from which the universe unfolds. The Rigveda hymn to Hiranyagarbha (10.121) ends by naming him Prajapati, the lord of creatures, and the Upanishads and later texts identify Hiranyagarbha with Prajapati (and with Brahma), the cosmic soul who is the totality of all individual minds.

Vishvakarma is the divine architect of a different Rigvedic hymn. 'Sahasraka' and 'Sahasra Sirsu' echo the thousand-headed Purusha of the Purusha Sukta, a separate image of the cosmic person, not the name of Hiranyagarbha.

Answer: C

The materialists are the Çarvākas.

The Carvaka or Lokayata school holds that only what is perceived exists, and that the world, including consciousness, is made of the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. Consciousness arises from their combination in the body, as intoxicating power arises from fermented ingredients, and ends with death. There is no soul, no God and no afterlife. This is materialism (jadavada) in the strict sense.

The Naiyayikas and Vaisheshikas are realists who accept atoms but also eternal souls and God, so they are not materialists. The Advaitins hold that Brahman, pure consciousness, alone is real, the very opposite of materialism.

Answer: B

The correct code is (a)-(2), (b)-(3), (c)-(1), (d)-(4).

• (a) In Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita, jivas are of three kinds: nitya (eternal), mukta (liberated) and baddha (bound).
• (b) Vaikuntha is the transcendent abode of Vishnu, where the nitya jivas, the eternally free souls, dwell.
• (c) Prapatti, complete self-surrender to God, is the means to liberation.
• (d) Ramanuja holds Brahmaparinamavada: the world is a real transformation of Brahman, not an illusion.

Only this code pairs jivas with the threefold division (2); the other codes give jivas liberation or Brahmaparinamavada, so they are wrong.

Answer: D

The school that rejects anumana is the Cārvāka.

The Carvakas accept perception (pratyaksha) as the only valid source of knowledge. They argue that inference depends on vyapti, an invariable universal relation between the middle term and the major term, such as 'wherever there is smoke there is fire'. Such a universal relation can never be established, since we cannot perceive all cases, so inference is at best probable and not a valid pramana.

Nyaya accepts four pramanas, including inference, and its logic is built on it. Jainism and Buddhism also accept inference; Buddhism recognises perception and inference as the two pramanas.

Answer: A

The vritti is Nidrā (sleep).

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (1.6) list five vrittis, modifications of the mind-stuff (citta): pramana (valid knowledge), viparyaya (error), vikalpa (verbal imagination), nidra (sleep) and smriti (memory). Sleep is a vritti because it is a modification based on the cognition of absence; on waking one remembers having slept well or badly.

Antahkarana, the inner instrument, and manas, the mind, are faculties, not modifications of citta. Dravya, substance, is a category of the Vaisheshika system and has nothing to do with the Yoga list of vrittis.

Answer: A

The argument for prakriti is Bhedānām Parimāṇat.

In the Samkhyakarika (verse 15), Ishvarakrishna proves the existence of an unmanifest first cause (prakriti) by several arguments. The first is bhedanam parimanat: all particular effects are limited and finite, so they must arise from an unlimited cause. The others include the common nature of all things and the evolution of effects from a cause.

The other options are arguments for different theses. Asadakaranat (the non-existent cannot be produced) is the first argument for satkaryavada (verse 9). Bhoktribhavat (because there is an enjoyer) and adhishthanat (because there must be a controller) are arguments for the existence of purusha (verse 17).

Answer: C

Nibbana indicates the cessation of suffering.

The third of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths is the cessation of suffering (dukkha-nirodha). Nibbana is the state in which craving, the cause of suffering, has been extinguished, and with it the fires of greed, hatred and delusion and the cycle of rebirth. The word itself means 'blowing out'.

Nibbana can be attained in this life while the body continues, so it is not the cessation of the body. The Buddha remained active after enlightenment, so it is not the cessation of action. Actions done without craving bear no karmic fruit, but that is a consequence, not the meaning of nibbana.

Answer: A

The external means (bahiranga sadhana) is Āsan.

Patanjali's eight-limbed (ashtanga) yoga divides into external and internal aids. The first five, yama, niyama, asana, pranayama and pratyahara, are bahiranga, external, because they prepare the body and the senses. The last three, dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption), are antaranga, internal, and together are called samyama.

So asana, the posture, is an external means, while dharana, dhyana and samadhi are the internal limbs.

Answer: B

The true statement is Prabhākara does not accept Anupalabdhi but Kumārila does.

The two schools of Purva Mimamsa differ on the number of pramanas. Kumarila Bhatta accepts six: perception, inference, comparison, testimony, postulation (arthapatti) and non-cognition (anupalabdhi), the means by which we know the absence of a thing. Prabhakara accepts only five, rejecting anupalabdhi on the ground that absence is known by perception of the bare locus.

So it is false that both reject anupalabdhi or both accept it, and Prabhakara plainly accepts five pramanas, so he does not reject them all.

Answer: A

The relationship is Apṛthaksiddhi.

Ramanuja describes the relation between Brahman and the world, and between the soul and its body, as aprthaksiddhi, inseparable relation. The body cannot exist apart from the soul that supports and controls it, just as the world and souls are the body of Brahman and cannot exist apart from Him, though they are distinct.

Samavaya, inherence, is the Nyaya-Vaisheshika relation, which Ramanuja rejects because it would lead to an infinite regress. Ayutasiddhi is a Nyaya term for things found only together. Prapatti is self-surrender, a means to liberation, not a relation.