Vedic perspective - Matter and its quality: Part 3/3

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Cognition or Knowledge or Jnana which was original topic of my search comes here. The first 2 parts gives a perspective where this falls into. The todays topic of Psychology or Neuro-linguistic / Psycho studies are focussed on the physical structures of mind. Our quest is not on those lines but trying to understand what are the different types of knowledge acquisition process and et al.


Cognition is of 2 types. They are: 

1. Remembrance/Smriti: This is subdivided into the true and erroneous smriti or remembrance. Smriti is always a recollection either from the primary or secondary memory, which is actually filled with the Apprehension type of knowledge which is defined below.
  





2. Apprehension/Anubhava





Apprehension is of 2 types. Valid Apprehension and invalid Apprehension.






Valid Apprehension is of 4 types.







1. Pratyaksha Pramanna (Perception)





2. Anumana Pramanna (Inference)





3. Upamaana Pramanna (Analytical knowledge)





4. Sabda (Sayings of the great people)






Erroneous Apprehension are of 3 types:







1. Doubt/Samsayah





2. Misapprehension/Viparyaya





3. False Assumption.

I notice that I have already blogged about the various categories 2 years back and can be accessed here. This is a 2 part blog.

Part 1: http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.com/2008/11/part-1-perception-art-of-seeing-things.html 

Part 2: http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.com/2008/11/part-2-perception-art-of-seeing-things.html

So, whats the summary or conclusion? 


1. In Hinduism all the knowledge sprouts from a common source and also linked to each other in its philosophy, mythology, legendary figures and also in rituals. I felt that part 1 and part 2 of the blog actually gave that link very well as to how every aspect is linked to the mother scripture the vedas. A little more understanding would highlight that even an art like cooking is well linked to Ayurveda and also to the vedas. Exploring and Understanding this manifested and unmanifested interconnection between each other happens at the heights of wisdom.


Also in tamil there are a very terse verse:

"கற்றது கைமண் அளவு, கல்லாதது உலகு அளவு "

which means what we have learnt is just handful and what we have to learn is to the size of this world, giving a relative size of knowledge we have. Lets recognize that this statement is made by people who are well versed with all the 18 disciplines we have listed in part 1 of this blog.

What certainly keeps one going is the list of items that you have to learn and understand and this certainly looks like multi-life event and not going to end up in this life!...

Tama soma Jyothir Gamaya!

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Vedic perspective - Matter and its quality: Part 2/3

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Now lets come to the Nyaya discipline which actually gives a good classification of types of matter (Dravya / substances) and also the different qualities of the dravya.

But before we jump into that lets see some background. Gautama Maharsi who composed the Nyaya-sutra is called "Aksapada". He was always so wrapped up in thought that he was often oblivious of the outside world. We call scientists, professors and such people "absent-minded" and retail jokes about them. Gautama too was absent-minded. One day as he was walking along, brooding over some philosophical problem, he fell into a well. Lord Shiva then rescued him and fixed eyes to his feet. Thus, as he walked, he would be guided by the pair of new eyes. That is how he came to be called "Aksapada", one with eyes on his feet. Aksha means eyes and pada means legs in sanskrit. So goes the story. 

The point as per my understanding is Hinduism is not all about rituals and gods and mythology. This section of philosophy called Nyaya, which actually deals with Logic or the art of right thinking claims to take your to the ultimate through Tarka and logic.

Now lets try to answer couple of questions:

1. What are basic building elements upon which this universe is built? If you are material physicist or chemist then you may take the names of 85+ elements. If you are nuclear physicist then you have a list of unknown, unseen particles like neutrino, positron, electrons, neutrons, quarks etc. If you are an eastern philosopher then you may list the 5 elements Pancha bhutas like Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. In Chinese its Wood and Metal instead of Air and Space.

Per Nyaya doctrine, substance or Dravya or Matter is divided into 9 categories. They are:

• Earth/Prithvi

• Water/Apa

• Light/Tejah

• Air/Vayu

• Ether/Akasa

• Time/Kala

• Space/Dik

• Soul/Atma

• Mind/Manas

Each and every thing living or non-living thing we encounter in this universe (not just the earth) has to be composed of one or more of the nine items above.

Now lets look at the Quality of the matter. What is the quality of a substance?

Element Earth has smell has its quality. Element water has taste as its primary quality. Wind has touch as its primary quality. Likewise there are 24 primary qualities listed. Each matter may have one or more of the 24 qualities listed. These 24 qualities are:

• Color/Rupa

• Taste/Rasa

• Odour/Gandha

• Touch/Sparsa

• Number/Sankhya

• Magnitude/Parimana

• Separateness/Prthaktva

• Conjunction/Samayoga

• Disjunction/Vibhaga

• Remoteness/Paratva

• Proximity/Apartva

• Heaviness/Gurutva

• Fluidity/Dravatva

• Viscidity/Sneha

• Sound/Sabda

• Cognition/Budhi

• Pleasure/Sukha

• Pain/Dhuka

• Desire/Ichha

• Dislike/Dvesa

• Volition/Prayatna

• Merit/Dharma

• Demerit/Adharma

• Tendencies/Samskarah

While there are many websites & books which deals with each Substance and also the quality of the Dravya, i am not planning to get into those discussions.

If you have noticed Cognition or Buddhi is one of the qualities listed above and lets look at what this is all about in the next part.

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Vedic Perspective - Matter and its Quality: Part 1/3

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I was searching for some reading material on Cognition / Buddhi and landed upon several different books and topics before i decided to write on this blog. Though it is well known to my close circle of friends let me add the disclaimer that its purely my amateurish interest on such topics that prompts me to blog on them and it is certainly not from a position of authority. 

If there are any factual mistakes please point them out and as a familiar couplet in Tamil goes 

"குற்றம் கலைந்து குறை பெய்து வாசித்தல் கற்றறிந்தார் மாந்தர் கடன்.", which means "It is the responsibility of the learned to remove the mistakes from what they are reading and take the right / correct ones".

So banking on your "responsibility" as per the above saying i am proceeding to the blog.

In the first part of this blog i actually want to touch upon the key sources of knowledge  / works the Hindu / Vedic system is dependent on. Despite  having a huge treasure trove of knowledge most of us are not familiar even with the names of the works leave alone the contents. Let me very briefly touch upon those.

Lets try to answer few of the questions below:

1. Just like Bible or Koran is there an Hindu equivalent and if yes, what is this?

2. If its available then what is that and who have written them for us?

3. What is the language it is written in?

4. What are the broad components / parts of this scriptures? 

Answer to the above questions are as follows:

1. Vedas are the most authoritative scriptures Hindus have and they are very popularly known as 4 Vedas... Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvana Veda.

2. Unlike the scriptures of other religions where it is being told that it is the teaching of a prophet or messenger of god, Vedas are not written by any human being or even by God. They are called "Apourusheya" which means not created by man. 

Then where from did they appear. As per Hindu belief these Vedas are vibrations available eternally just like electromagnetic waves of say Radio FM or the satellite DTH. If you are capable of tuning to the same then you can receive it. Vedas are believed to be the "breath of god". 

But lets note that they are not god themselves. Vedas have a sound form but the supreme Brahman cannot be reached through actions or words hence Vedas cannot make you realize Supreme Brahman but can take you closer. I am sure some of you don't agree / want to discuss on this.

All the sages who have tuned themselves have revealed these vibrations and have told that they are not the creators. 

3. Lets come to question 3 as to in which language it is written? The most famous but a wrong answer is SANSKRIT. Yes. Vedas are not written in Sanskrit but in something called "Chandas" which is known as "metre". Lets see about this as a part of the next question.

4. Unlike our modern belief where in we "rationalists" think that we are scientifically advanced and the people of the stone age were hunting animals and so on, the hindu scriptures reveal that in Kali Yuga, which is currently running (we have entered Kali Yuga ~5000 years ago) large parts of mankind would lose most of their mental and physical capabilities like will power, memory etc. Hence sage Veda Vyasa segregated and compiled these 4 vedas for the benefit of the mankind and also created some more disciplines. So the bottom line is these 4 vedas were segregated and compiled by Sage Vyasa but not created by him and prior to this act we can assume that the vedas were not available in this form or format.

But lets come to the other disciplines which supports these 4 Vedas which have been the supporting knowledge streams for the Hindu Culture. I am not going to deal with them deeply but just give a overview.

There are 18 disciplines in all including the 4 vedas. Assuming Veda is a Man (purusha) then there are 4 Vedas which form the core,   6 Vedangaas which are organs of Vedas, 4 secondary limbs (Upangaas) and 4 Upavedas which are the supporting vedas. (Anga in sanskrit means part.)

Our knowledge stream is not limited to this but these form the core of the knowledge source in Hinduism. you may note that both Ramayana and Mahabharatha are not part of this and were part of "Itihasa". 

Lets see a little more about them:

1. Each Veda has 2 broad parts - Karma Kanda (which talks about rituals, procedure, actions) and Jnana kanda (This is also known as vedanta, which talks about philosophy and knowledge). Many of us are actually hooked on to the concepts of Vendanta aka. Upanishad and we tend to ignore the ritualistic part of the scriptures. 

2. Modern historians attribute a time frame like 3000 years or so for these vedas based on some evidence. Strong believers of hindu scriptures ignore these predictions and don't attribute any time for these vedas. If the age of the universe if 13billion light years then they say that the vedas have been there since then. I shall write a separate blog on the concept of time as per Hindus later.

3. Briefly about the four vedas:

• Rig veda was given by Vyasa to sage Sage Paila which extols devatas or angels.
• Yajur Veda was given by Vyasa to Sage Vysampayana which deals with ritualistic procedures of Yajna.
• Sama Veda was given by Vyasa to Sage Jaimini, which has music and peace through very melodious hymns.
• Atharvana Veda was given by Vyasa to Sage Sumanthu, which deals with warding of evils, hardships and enemies. This has components of so called black magic and tantra too.

4. Now lets get to the Organ of Vedas (Vedangaas) which are 6 in all.

• Seeksha is the Nose and Lungs of Veda Purusha and deals with Euphony and Pronounciation - Tone, Duration, Pitch, Evenness, Compounding of words
• Vyakarna is the mouth of the veda Purusha deals with Grammar. This has its origin from Lord Nataraja's (Shiva) Damru sound through 14 hymns. You may like a related blog on this topic and the interesting link to Islam and Shaivism. http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.com/2008/11/interesting-linkage-between-shaivism.html
• Chandas is the feet of Veda purusha which deals with the metre. The hymns that were recited all comply to a rule of how many letters per pada and how many pada per line of hymn. For example Gayatri mantra is made of 3 padas and each pada has 8 letters / aksharas. Valmiki Ramayana is written in Anushtub Chandas. It is because of this we find the recitation of vedas / mantras or slokas being so synchronised, measured and soothing. 
• Nirukta are the ears and are equivalent to the dictionary of Vedas.
• Jyotisha are the eyes of Vedas. This is an important part of veda and a science which is misunderstood and misused currently. Both Astrology and Astronomy are parts of this discipline. One branch of Jyotisha is called "Hora Sastra" which deals with time. It is believed that the word Hour has its root in "Hora" which is in sanskrit.
• Kalpa - Arm of Vedas.

5. Now lets look at Upaangas  - Secondary limbs of Vedas. 

• Meemamsa  - Deals with Analysis & Interpretation and is divided as Poorva Meemamsa - Karma Kanda and Uttara Meemamsa - Jnana Kanda/ Brahmasutra in Upanishads. 
• Nyaya Tarka - Deals with Logic, Tatva - Philosophy. There are very interesting aspects of logic such as Aarambha Vaada, Parinaama Vaada, Vivartha Vaada. This is one of the best topics i have read.
• Puraana is the Magnifier of Mythology.  There are 18 puranaas which has about 400000 granthas. Each Grantha is a sloka with 32 syllables. 
• Dharma Shastra deals with Codes of Conduct. Manu Dharma which is basis of the judicial system is part of Dharma Sastra.

6. Now lets look at Upavedas which are 4 in number.

• Ayurveda deals with Science of Life. Most of us are familiar with this.
• Arthasastra deals with Science of Wealth & Economics. Chanakya made this pretty popular. 
• DhanurVeda Science of Weaponary 
• Gaandharva Veda Treatises on Arts, Music. You may be knowing that there are 64 art forms and there is a treatise on each of them.

Our topic of discussion is part of the Nyaya-Tarka which is part of the Upaangas as described above. So part 1 deals with the context of this discipline among the 18 disciplines in Hindu scriptures.

Lets go to Part 2.
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Part 2 - Perception - Art of seeing things as we are and not as they are!

Prameya - The aspects of reality and hence knowable is classified into 12 things. They are the soul, the body, 5 senses, Objects of senses, Cognition (Budhi), mind, activity (of the mind), dosa (mental defects), rebirth (life after death), Phala (fruits of our actions - pain, pleasure), suffering (dukha) and freedom from suffering.
If we are not ignorant about these 12 things then we would attain liberation but unfortunately we are bonded due to wrong or invalid knowledge on the above.

So whats the way we can achieve valid knowledge?

This is where Pramaana kicks in!... According to Nyaya there are 4 distinct fountains of current knowledge:

1. Perception (Pratyaksha Pramaana)
2. Inference (Anumaana Pramaana)
3. Comparison (Upamaana Pramaana)
4. Testimony (Sadba Pramaana)

Also knowledge is gained through Experience (Anubhava) and also through memory (Smriti). Experiential knowledge is received through above 4 ways and memory is essentially is acquired through anubhava but stored and recollected over a period of time.

There are few ways of Invalid knowledege (Aprama), which are Samsaya (Doubt - Inability to conclude / determine), faulty conginition (Bhrama) and Hypothetical argument (based on).

Lets look at what perception is.

Perception (Pratyaksha Pramaana) - Knowledge produced by the conjunction (Contact) of an object and an organ. So what are the operative components of perception, lets take an example of we perceiving a blue color jar. There are 6 components which are "recognized" during the perception process...

1. Conjunction - Samyoga Sannikarsah - Eye sees a Jar which is the conjunction of Object (Jar) and Organ - Eye.
2. Inherent Union with what has come into contact - Samyukta Samavayah (Blue color is the inherent union with the Jar which is also perceived)
3. Inherent Union with what is intimately united with a thing that has come into contact. - Samyukta Samaveta Samavayah (This is the recognition of Genus "Colorness" which is the inherent union that is Intimately united (blue color) with the object (Jar)).
4. Inherent Union of the organ - Samavayah Sannikarsah - through the organ of seeing - Eye in this case.
5. Inherent union with the intimately United - Samaveta Samavaya Sannikarsah. - (In the same way Genus "Sight")
6. The connection of the attribute to the substantiative. - Visesana Visesyabhava Sanniskara

• Perceptions could be classified based type of contact Ordinary perception- (Laukika) which is based on direct contact and Alukika (Extraordinary Perception) based on indirect contact.

The ordinary perception (laukika) process has 2 stages - Indeterminate (Nirvikalpa - without knowing the quality such as color, shape but recognizing the jar) and Determinate (Savikalpa) which is definite and explicit. Most perception processes are generally first indeterminate and then determinate. The speed at which this happens in an individual determines how sharp the person is.

The extraordinary perception (alaukika) is divided into:

• Samanya Lakshana (identification of classes or generality in one thing .... for example it can be understanding Human being are mortal. Here humanity and mortality are generic classes identified.)
• Jnana Lakshana (Perception of association) ... when we see ice we also perceive that it is cold, this does not happen because we directly feel coldness but through association.)
• Yogaja - Perceptions acquired through yogic practices.

Perceptions could also be classified based type of modes External perception- (Bahya) which is based on 5 senses and Internal (Manasa) based on mind as an internal faculty perceiving pain, pleasure, aversion, desire, cognition etc.

This is perception in brief. Just look at the depth of definition, classifications and most importantly the interlinkages between systems ex. Yogaja which is based on the Yoga school of thought and has little to do with Nyaya system.

When you take time to read the other aspects of this philosophy, you will understand and appreciate the depth of thinking, not loose but very structured that was there ages before which is our inheritence, but lost some where, some how...

We are ensconsed in "bliss" and even for those who have come across this for the first time in this blog would still be ignorant just like me, but for the fact that they would have moved one item from "unknown-unknown" to "known-unknown" .

By this measure the toughest jobs are that of "Quality or brand professionals" who earn their bread by managing & improving "perception of a perception".


Yours perceptionally!

Happy reading !

Part 1 - Perception - Art of seeing things as we are and not as they are !

" If we are what we think ! then we are shallow beings, since many of us who don't think deep enough.

If we are what we eat ! then we are empty beings, since majority of us are below the poverty line and invaribaly starve.

The lowest common denominator seems to be, we are what we perceive!

For Perception is the art of seeing things as we are
and not as they are ! "

Many of us think that we are in brighter times as men have turned "Rationalists" in the last few decades / centuries and is coming out of the dark ages of superstition and have understood the power of thinking and invented a new system of thought process.

Can you believe that our forefathers did not only have logical and rational thinking as a science but also showed us a path of extending that science to realize ourselves and its a pity that many of us are ignorant of this. The gem of a topic i am going to share with you and finally link up with the first few lines of this blog is essentially about Nyaya (aka Tarka Sastra) - a system of philosophy propounded by Gotama concerns with the achieving valid knowledge through science of logic and reasoning.

The goal of Nyaya philosophy is to attain the liberation of soul through logical thinking and attain valid knowledge. Valid Knowledge eradicates ignorance and hence paves way for realization. One of the important aspects i want to stress upon is there were many schools of thought in Indian Philosophy like Nyaya, Yoga, Samkhya & even Mimamsa (to a lesser degree) which were roads to realization of ourselves but did not follow idol worship. Even this aspect is not known to many of us for we choose to live in "bliss".

So what does Nyaya system deal with? I shall try to be as concise as possible and as always i would ask you to refer further details from our global guru for self learning - google.com.

All Indian philosophies are divided into 1. study of nonmanifested reality and 2. study of manifested reality. Nyaya system deals with both but mainly explains that from 2 broad topics (or atleast iam going to deal it that way) under 16 different categories. The broad topics are:

1. The object of knowledge (Prameya) - What is knowable.

2. Sources of valid Knowledge (Pramana) - Means to attain Valid knowledge

Etymologically, Prama means Budhi (Cognition) hence object of knowledge is prameya and sources through which we receive this knowledge is Pramana.

But before i "drink deeper" let me ask you few questions for you to think:

1. What do you think is knowable as you can list and can you categorize it?

2. What do you think are the sources of knowledge?

3. Can you define perception, Inference?

4. Can you tell me the difference between perception & Inference?

Now during my MBA program i had read some definition of perception in one of the management books followed up by multiple definitions of perception by various philosophers. Infact I can say that there is no philosophy / philosopher which (who) has not touched upon perception. Nyaya also deals with perception in a significant way (but i should say) & most comprehensive way in approach i have ever read...

There are few books in life that are difficult to understand in one go and few books that teach us something new when ever we read it repeatedly. Nyaya and Tarka related books fall under both categories for me.

Let me stop here and continue this in the next blog....

Yours logically

Happy reading !