(a) Discuss Rāmānuja's criticism of Śaṅkara's conception of Brahman and Īśvara (God). (20 marks) (b) Present Bhatta's view of…

(a) Rāmānuja's criticism of Śaṅkara's Brahman and Īśvara

For Śaṅkara, the highest Brahman is nirguṇa and nirviśeṣa, pure indeterminate consciousness; Īśvara is Brahman as seen through māyā, a lower, empirical reality, and the world and the jīva's bondage are due to avidyā. Rāmānuja, in the Śrī Bhāṣya and Vedārtha Saṅgraha, rejects each step. Brahman. No means of knowledge can establish a wholly indeterminate reality: perception grasps things with qualities, inference needs a mark, and śruti speaks through words that denote by qualification. Texts such as "neti neti" deny limited forms, not all attributes, and "nirguṇa" in śruti means lacking evil qualities. "Tat tvam asi" shows samānādhikaraṇya, co-reference of two qualified terms, not the identity of two attributeless things. Avidyā. In seven objections (saptavidhānupapatti) he argues that avidyā cannot be located: not in the jīva, whose existence it is said to produce, nor in Brahman, who is pure knowledge; its nature as neither real nor unreal is unintelligible; and knowledge of the real could not remove it. Īśvara. If Īśvara is a product of māyā, then worship and liberation are unreal. In Viśiṣṭādvaita Brahman is the one real, personal Nārāyaṇa with auspicious qualities; the souls (cit) and matter (acit) are real modes, the body of Brahman, in a relation of śarīra-śarīrin and viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya. Consequently, liberation is reached by bhakti and prapatti (surrender), not by the removal of ignorance by knowledge alone. Critics, in turn, say that Rāmānuja's God keeps duality and leaves the relation between Brahman and its body hard to state.

(b) Bhāṭṭa view of anupalabdhi as a pramāṇa

Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and his school accept six pramāṇas: perception, inference, comparison, testimony, postulation (arthāpatti) and anupalabdhi, also called abhāva-pramāṇa. It is the means of knowing absence: a cognition such as "there is no pot here" arises from the non-apprehension of a pot that would have been seen if present, which is yogya-anupalabdhi. Argument for validity: Perception cannot cognise absence, since the senses have contact only with existing things and the absence has no contact. Inference cannot, since no probans is present: the non-apprehension is not a mark with invariable concomitance. No other pramāṇa suits it, and the cognition is not doubtful, so a separate pramāṇa is needed. Condition: the counter-correlate must be capable of being perceived in those conditions (a ghost on the floor is not thus denied). Contrast. The Naiyāyikas treat absence as perceived through the sense in contact with its locus (viśeṣaṇatā), so no separate pramāṇa. Prabhākara denies absence as a distinct entity: the empty locus is simply perceived. Advaita accepts anupalabdhi as Bhāṭṭa does. Evaluation: the theory fits the immediate, distinct character of negative judgements, though Nyāya argues that it is economical to treat it as perception.

(c) Nyāya on ordinary and extraordinary perception, and perception of universals

Nyāya defines perception as knowledge arising from sense-object contact, not erroneous and determinate (Nyāya Sūtra I.1.4). Laukika (ordinary) perception is through sensory contact of six kinds: saṃyoga (contact, as of the eye with a pot), saṃyukta-samavāya (the colour of the pot), saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāya (the colourness in it), samavāya (sound by the ear), samaveta-samavāya (soundness) and viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāva (absence). It may be nirvikalpaka, indeterminate, or savikalpaka, determinate. Alaukika (extraordinary) perception is of three kinds: sāmānya-lakṣaṇa, in which the universal perceived in one case gives perception of all individuals of the class, the basis of the knowledge of invariable concomitance (vyāpti); jñāna-lakṣaṇa, as in "the sandalwood smells sweet" seen by the eye; and yogaja, the perception of a yogi. Universals (jāti) are real and inhere in individuals, so potness is perceived by saṃyukta-samavāya, along with the pot. Evaluation. Nyāya realism is defensible: recognition, common names and inference need real commonality, and the Buddhist apoha theory (Dignāga) cannot explain the positive content of recognition. But the view relies on samavāya and a realm of universals, which nominalists deny, and sāmānya-lakṣaṇa seems to credit perception with unobserved individuals, which is hard to justify.