Classical Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Nyāya accepts Parataḥ-Prāmāṇya (extrinsic validity).

For Nyāya, a cognition does not carry its own validity. Whether it is valid is known from outside it, by a further test such as fruitful activity: seeing water, we go to it, and successful drinking confirms the perception. Invalidity is likewise known extrinsically, through failure.

Intrinsic validity (A), and intrinsic validity with extrinsic invalidity (D), are the Mīmāṁsā and Advaita view. Intrinsic invalidity (B) is the Buddhist position.

Answer: C

The true statements about the Buddhist theory of inference are (1), (2) and (3).

(1) For Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti, a valid reason (hetu) has three marks (trairūpya): it is present in the subject, present in similar cases and absent from dissimilar cases. (2) Dharmakīrti grounds invariable concomitance in identity (tādātmya) or causality (tadutpatti). (3) Non-apprehension (anupalabdhi) is one of his three kinds of valid reason, with identity and effect.

(4) is false for the Buddhists: absence of a counter-balancing reason (asatpratipakṣatva) is one of the five marks of a good reason in Nyāya, which adds it and non-contradiction to the Buddhist three.

Answer: C

The correct match is a-4, b-3, c-2, d-1.

• Pramāṇa Samuccaya: Diṅnāga, the founder of Buddhist logic.
• Pramāṇa Mīmāṁsā: Hemacandra, the twelfth-century Jaina scholar.
• Nyāyāvatāra: Siddhasena Divākara, an early Jaina logician.
• Nyāyabindu: Dharmakīrti, the Buddhist logician.

The other codes attach the two Buddhist works or the two Jaina works to the wrong authors.

Answer: A

The kinds not in the Buddhist classification are (1) and (3).

Dharmakīrti recognises three kinds of valid reason: identity of nature (svabhāva), effect (kārya) and non-apprehension (anupalabdhi). So inference from one's own nature (2) and from non-apprehension (4) are Buddhist kinds.

Sāmānyatodṛṣṭa is one of the three kinds of inference in the Nyāya Sūtra (with pūrvavat and śeṣavat), and 'anyathānupapanna', the reason that is otherwise impossible, is the Jaina definition of a valid reason. That rules out the options including (2) or (4).

Answer: A

This view is held by the Naiyāyikas.

Nyāya divides ordinary perception into two stages: nirvikalpaka, the bare, indeterminate apprehension of an object, and savikalpaka, the determinate perception in which it is recognised as qualified by a name and a universal ('this is a pot'). Both are valid perception.

The Buddhists (Diṅnāga, Dharmakīrti) accept only the indeterminate stage as perception; determinate cognition is for them conceptual construction (kalpanā), not perception. The Cārvākas accept perception as the sole pramāṇa but this two-stage analysis is not theirs.

Answer: C

The correct pairs are (i) and (iv).

(i) Nyāya holds extrinsic validity (parataḥ prāmāṇya): the validity of a cognition is established by an external test. (iv) Sāṁkhya holds that both validity and invalidity are intrinsic, so it is a svataḥ prāmāṇya view.

(ii) is wrong: the Buddhists hold intrinsic invalidity and extrinsic validity. (iii) is wrong: Mīmāṁsā is the chief defender of intrinsic validity, with only invalidity known extrinsically. So the options containing (ii) or (iii) fail.

Answer: A

That Īśvara is only the efficient cause of the world is held by the Nyāya system.

For Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, the world is made from eternal atoms, which are its material (inherent) cause. God is the efficient cause (nimitta kāraṇa) who sets the atoms in motion and arranges them, as a potter shapes clay he did not create.

Vedānta holds that Brahman is both the material and the efficient cause of the world. Jainism and the early Mīmāṁsā deny a creator God altogether, so they do not hold God to be a cause of the world at all.

Answer: C

Śaṅkara upholds Anirvacanīyakhyāti.

For Advaita, the snake seen in a rope is neither real (it is sublated when the rope is known) nor unreal (it is actually experienced, unlike a barren woman's son). It is indescribable as either real or unreal: anirvacanīya. The world-appearance is explained in the same way.

Akhyāti (non-apprehension) is Prabhākara's theory, satkhyāti (the object of error is real) is Rāmānuja's, and viparītakhyāti (apprehending one thing as another) is Kumārila's.

Answer: C

For Rāmānuja the individual soul is a real enjoyer and agent.

In Viśiṣṭādvaita the jīva is real, eternal and atomic in size. It is a knower, a doer (kartā) and an enjoyer (bhoktā) of the fruits of its actions, and it remains distinct even in liberation, as a mode or part of Brahman, who is its inner controller.

Strict non-duality with God (A), the soul as a reflection due to ignorance (B) and the soul as simply the Brahman (D) are Advaita positions that Rāmānuja rejects.

Answer: B

In a conflict with testimony on matters of experience, Śaṅkara prescribes going by sense experience.

Śaṅkara holds that scripture is authoritative only about what lies beyond the reach of perception and inference, chiefly Brahman and dharma. In his commentary on the Gītā (18.66) he argues that even a hundred scriptural texts declaring fire to be cold would not be authoritative, because perception settles such matters. So where testimony and sense experience conflict over something perceptible, perception prevails.

Testimony keeps its authority only in its own sphere, so A is wrong for this case; reason and inference are not what he names as the deciding authority here.