Classical Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Knowledge arising out of the contact of a sense with its object is perception, so the answer is C.

This is the traditional definition of pratyaksa in Nyaya: knowledge produced by the contact of a sense organ with an object. The word 'perception' is the English rendering of it.

Experience (A) is a wider word that covers every kind of awareness. Inference (B) comes from a mark and testimony (D) from words, so neither arises from the contact of a sense with an object.

Answer: B

The one who does not come under Vaishnavism is Samkara, so the answer is B.

Samkara taught Advaita, the non-dual identity of the self and Brahman without attributes, and he is regarded as the founder of the Advaita school and not of a Vaishnava one. Ramanuja, Madhva and Vallabha, by contrast, each founded a Vaishnava school (Visistadvaita, Dvaita and Suddhadvaita), in which Vishnu or Krishna is the supreme God.

Options A, C and D are therefore Vaishnava teachers, and only B is the exception.

Answer: C

The thinker who advocates pushti (grace) is Vallabha, so the answer is C.

Vallabha's Suddhadvaita school and the Pushtimarga that follows from it hold that the soul gains God's favour chiefly through his grace (pushti), which is received through loving devotion to Krishna.

Ramanuja (A) stresses prapatti, surrender to God, Madhva (B) stresses devotion with a strict dualism, and Samkara (D) places liberation in knowledge. The word pushti is the mark of Vallabha's school.

Answer: B

The thinker who makes a provision for eternal hell is Madhva, so the answer is B.

Madhva's Dvaita teaches an eternal difference of souls and divides them into three classes by nature: those fit for liberation, those who pass through the cycle of rebirth for ever, and those doomed for ever to darkness (andhantamas). The last class is the eternal hell, which no other major Vedantin accepts.

Samkara (A), Nimbarka (C) and Vallabha (D) hold that all souls are finally saved or reach Brahman.

Answer: C

The advocate of the five differences (pancabheda) is Madhva, so the answer is C.

Madhva's Dvaita holds five eternal differences: between God and the soul, between God and matter, between the soul and matter, between one soul and another, and between one material thing and another.

Samkara (A) denies all difference in the ultimate, Ramanuja (B) holds difference in unity, and Vallabha (D) holds pure non-dualism, so none of them teaches the five differences.

Answer: C

For Samkara, 'Tat tvam asi' means the identity between the individual soul and Brahman, so the answer is C.

The sentence 'That thou art' comes from the Chandogya Upanishad, where the father Uddalaka tells his son Svetaketu that the self is the Absolute. Samkara reads it, after removing the limiting adjuncts of 'tat' (the cosmic) and 'tvam' (the individual), as the identity of the self (jiva) with Brahman.

The other options speak of the world as God (A), the knower with the known (B) or the world with the self (D), which are not the meaning that he draws from it.

Answer: D

The official key gives 'None of the above'. The arguments usually offered for the authority of the Vedas by Nyaya turn on the reliability of an author: a text is valid because its author is trustworthy. The Mimamsa school, by contrast, holds the Vedas to be authorless and valid in themselves. The three listed arguments, the power, the character and the purpose of the authors, all assume that the Vedas have authors whose qualities guarantee them, which the key treats as not among the arguments in favour of the Vedas. The answer is None of the above, as the key states.

Answer: A

On the nature of the self, the Charvaka school can be classified as Dehatmavadins, those who identify the self with the body. For the Charvakas consciousness arises from the combination of the four elements in the body and ends with it, so there is no separate soul. The terms Pranavadins and Indriyatmavadins name the views that the self is the vital breath or the senses, which some Charvaka thinkers are said to have held, but the standard and keyed answer is the body-self view. 'All the above' is therefore not the keyed answer. The answer is Dehatmavadins. The Charvakas hold that only perception gives knowledge and that only the four elements exist, so a self separate from the body has no place in their system.

Answer: B

According to the official key, the havya, the oblation offered in a Vedic sacrifice, results in benefiting the consumer of the havya, that is, the person who offers the sacrifice and enjoys its fruit, the yajamana. The priest (Rtvik) performs the rite for a fee and does not receive its result, and the deity (Devata) is the recipient of the offering but not the beneficiary in the sense of the fruit. The answer is Consumer of the havya, as the key states, and 'None of these' is wrong because one listed option fits.

Answer: C

The Vedic word Rta stands for both moral and cosmic order. In the Rigveda, Rta is the principle that keeps the sun, the seasons and the stars in their courses and is also the standard of right conduct and truth, guarded by Varuna. So limiting it to the moral order (option A) or to the cosmic order (option B) leaves out half of its meaning, and 'neither' is false. The answer is both moral and cosmic order.