(a) Present a detailed account of Gautama's definition of Perception. 20 (b) How is Brahman conceptualised in Advaita philosophy…

Classical Indian philosophy ties epistemology, metaphysics and hermeneutics: how we know shapes what exists and how scripture is read.

(a) Gautama’s definition of perception Gautama defines pratyakṣa as indriyārthasannidhānānumānādivyatirekam jñānam, and it is unpacked as avyapadeśya, avyabhicāri and vyavasāyatmakā. Avyapadeśya means that perception is not produced by or dependent on verbal expression; it chiefly excludes śabda/testimonial cognition, while inference is excluded mainly by the requirement of sense-object contact. Avyabhicāri means non-deceptive, stable and free from doubt. Vyavasāyatmakā means determinate or decisive, giving a settled cognition of an object rather than a vague or uncertain awareness. Gautama’s pratyakṣa is divided into laukika and alaukika. The laukika type is sixfold: it proceeds through the five external indriyas and manas, the internal sense that serialises sensory contact and turns it into determinate object-awareness. Thus perception is not merely raw contact; it becomes knowledge when manas organises the contact and the mind fixes the object. Alaukika perception includes samanyalakṣaṇa, jñānalakṣaṇa and yogajñāna, where the object is not directly before the external sense but is known through a prior valid cognition or yogic power. The key internal distinction is between nirvikalpaka and savikalpaka perception. Vātsyāyana’s reading of vyavasāyatmakā stresses the determinate, word- and concept-connected stage, so that pratyakṣa is savikalpaka. Uddyotakara makes room for an earlier indeterminate contact-cognition, nirvikalpaka, before the mind supplies name, universal and relation. This debate was sharpened by Dinnaga’s sākāravāda theory of cognition, which treats cognition as objectified and insists that genuine perception is concept-free, thereby challenging Nyāya’s acceptance of a concept-laden perceptual stage.

(b) Brahman as efficient and material cause In Advaita, Brahman is conceived as both nimitta and upadāna kāraṇa of the world. As nimitta, Brahman is like the potter who brings the pot into being; as upadāna, Brahman is like the clay that constitutes the pot, or the rope misapprehended as a snake. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad’s teaching that “all this is Brahman” supports the material-cause analogy: the world is not something other than Brahman. Śaṅkara resolves this through vivartavāda: Brahman is satya, the world mithyā; it is not real parināma but apparent transformation due to adhyāsa, explained in the Adhyāsa-bhāṣya, where name and form are superimposed on Brahman. The three levels of reality clarify this: paramārthika is Brahman alone; vyāvahārika is the empirical world; pratibhāsika is the dream or rope-snake appearance. The world is real enough for action, but not ultimately real.

(c) Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara on abhāva The Mīmāṃsā debate turns on whether non-existence is a real object of knowledge. The Bhaṭṭa school, especially Kumārila, treats abhāva as an independent padārtha, known by a separate pramāṇa, anupalabdhi. It classifies abhāva into five types: prāgabhāva, pradhvamsabhāva, atyantabhāva, anyonyabhāva and saṃsargabhāva/samyogabhāva. For Bhaṭṭa, the cognition “there is no jar on the ground” is a valid cognition of absence, not merely a failure to perceive. Prabhākara rejects abhāva as a padārtha. For him, non-existence is only the absence of a pramāṇa-siddha satta, a validly established existence. The knowledge of absence arises from the non-apprehension of the expected object after due search, and is reducible to perception or inference, not a sixth pramāṇa. The jar-on-ground example shows the issue: Bhaṭṭa says the absence itself is apprehended; Prabhākara says we apprehend the ground and the non-appearance of the jar, and infer absence. The debate therefore concerns the ontology of absence and the limits of pramāṇa.

Together they reflect the broader Indian tension between realism and idealism: Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā defend the reality of objects and absence, while Advaita subordinates empirical reality to Brahman.