• This article tells how Indian Knowledge Systems can be a bridge between the east and west thereby, showing a middle path.

This article has three authors namely Anshuman Panda, Deekhit Bhattacharya and Gautam R. Desiraju. To read an o/s earlier piece The Limits of Reductionism create an Opportunity for Indian Knowledge Systems

Over the last several centuries, philosophers in the West have debated the best approach to acquiring knowledge of ultimate reality: does one rely on intellect or intuition?  This discussion gained particular momentum with René Descartes and his method of radical skepticism. Questioning all extant knowledge before him, Descartes sought to create a new foundation of knowledge, for which he considered the direct perceptions of the sense organs as the primary tool for establishing reality, and hence knowledge. His discursive approach laid the foundation for modern science, after which all transmitted knowledge not rooted in direct observation or empirical evidence was considered suspect. The irony of this undertaking was that Descartes, then a mercenary for the Dutch in 1619, was inspired to abandon his military ambitions and take up philosophy and mathematics after a series of dreams he interpreted as a divine being bestowing upon him a new philosophy.

This new kind of purely reason-backed approach eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, with its accompanying ideologies of materialism and determinism. Reacting against the mechanistic worldview, another set of philosophers–the romantics–mounted a significant critique. They were of the view that life is not mechanical and that intellect is not the sole or ultimate faculty. They argued that intuition and subjective human experience are more fundamental than intellect. Rousseau, for example, said that ‘the advancement of science and the arts had corrupted, rather than improved, human morality’.

It may be noted nonetheless, that the romantics approached intuition through a predominantly emotional lens, and their rejection of the mechanistic worldview was not grounded in scientific evidence but in subjective feelings. Furthermore, the validity accorded to intuition and intellect was not determined in a pristine philosophical space, but rather was subject to the politics of the day.

Thus, Goethe’s Zarte Empirie perhaps came at the wrong time for it to find acceptance, having been conceived during the high noon of materialistic determinism, where the zeitgeist reposed boundless optimism in a secular, heartless and godless ‘science’ to demolish the remnants of the ancien regime based on theocratic and monarchical diktats.

Western perspectives on the debate

So the Western philosophers of that era offered contrasting perspectives, some critiquing materialism and many romanticism.

Thinkers such as Locke, Hegel, Kant, and Russell advocated the realist school of thought. This school, by and large, proposed that reality is what is perceived by the senses and can be known by the logical method alone. In the words of Hegel, “What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.”

As it was the era of the triumph of the natural sciences, with the discovery of various laws of nature, such views automatically gained wide currency. Homo Sapiens was to live through a golden age of rationality and abandon shibboleths, metamorphosing into Homo Economicus.

On the other hand, thinkers like Rousseau, Schlegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer focused more on subjective human experience and the role of emotion and imagination. They contended that reason is inadequate in the analysis of reality, and that imaginative intuition must take precedence.

There were other thinkers who tried to synthesize these two contrasting philosophies, such as Henri Bergson and Benedetto Croce; however, the broader undercurrent of Western thought has remained primarily logical since pre-Socratic times. There is a genuine discomfort with the concept of knowable but indeterminable (via reason), and claims of such knowledge are labelled as mysticism. This discomfort also partly explains why the West developed an exclusivist approach to knowledge, leading to much strife against people of alternative knowledge systems and their knowledge itself.

Mysticism has often been associated with Eastern philosophies, due to its focus on creative intuition. While tomes have been written on the subject, Russell posed a challenge to mysticism in his book Mysticism and Logic, in which he distinguished between the two approaches to knowledge—one being reason and intellect, and the other intuition and mysticism. He claimed the following for mysticism:

1. Belief in a world beyond the world of the senses,

2. Belief in the underlying unity of everything,

3. Denial of the reality of time,

4. That Evil is an illusion arising from the divisions within the analytic intellect, and oppositions consequent to them.

By systematically subjecting each of these tenets to rational scrutiny, Russell concluded that mysticism lacked sufficient evidence to support them and therefore cannot be regarded as a form of knowledge distinct from imagination.

Indian perspectives on the debate

In contrast, Indian thinkers have been comfortable with the idea of intuitive knowledge since the very dawn of our civilization. Intuition has been recognised as an important driver of the knowledge acquisition and structuring process, and is sought to be inculcated.

Intuition is not opposed to logic—rather it is considered to be supralogical. While the lifestyle and spiritual practices integral to the Indic way of life were geared towards bolstering intuition, a rigorous study of nyaya or logic was just as central. The Vedas, which are the foundations of Indian Knowledge Systems, calls its composers mantra drishtas or ‘seers’ of the mantra. The subsequent schools which developed, both of the Astika (Veda-aligned) and Nastika (Veda-unaligned) varieties, treated ‘mystical’ knowledge as the true knowledge of reality, Sat.

The Carvakas, the materialists of India, were perhaps the only ones who denied the veracity of intuitive knowledge. They considered only the evidence of the senses, Pratyaksha, as truth, and sometimes even questioned logically derived conclusions. Adi Sankara summed up the refutation of this position thus: Self-knowledge, which is neither logical nor sensory, is the presupposition of every other kind of knowledge. It alone is beyond doubt, for "it is of the essential nature of him who denies it."

Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) indeed posit the above ‘mystical’ tenets, as pointed out by Russell in recent times. However, they do so with an important qualification. The approach to knowledge is not an absolute either/or between intellect and intuition. Rather, depending on the context, one form or the other is better suited for application.

There is a twofold division of knowledge, or vidya, in IKS: Para Vidya, representing transcendental knowledge, and Apara Vidya, representing worldly knowledge. Together, these make up the entirety of reality, and no knowledge can be pursued solely by neglecting the other. In the words of the Isha Upanishad, “Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after avidya (Apara), they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to vidya (Para) alone”.

Apara is the realm of the physical, of facts and figures, logic and data. In the domain of Apara, intellect or reason is given primacy. Here, the pramanas such as pratyaksha (direct perception) and anumana (inference) are given special emphasis.

In the domain of Para, intuition plays a major role. Here, the focus is on directly perceiving the transcendental reality (darshana) rather than arriving at it through logical analysis. The knowledge gleaned about Para is self-experiential in nature, and though a guru may guide the aspirant, they cannot impart it to him or her.

An important caveat must be added here. IKS clearly differentiates between this intuitive knowledge of Para and superstition or imagination. The seeing of the Para reality is as real as the seeing of objects of perception by our senses. It cannot be changed or transmuted in any form or manner by our desires or thoughts, unlike imagination.

This non-sensory yet immediate knowledge is called Aparoksha. It is knowledge that is gained when the misapprehension of observer-observed duality is overcome. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wrote in An Idealist Way of Life, “It is awareness of the truth of things by identity. We become one with the truth, one with the object of knowledge. The object known is seen not as outside the self, but as a part of the self. What intuition reveals is not so much a doctrine as a consciousness; it is a state of mind and not a definition of the object.”

Limitations of Logic

The application of intellect to Apara and of intuition to Para is not a hard-and-fast rule, for we know that intuition is often beneficial in the Apara domain, and intellect is also used to categorise Para. But intuition, at least at the higher stages, comes from the realm of the Para, and intellect, as Bergson says, is an ‘instrument evolved by our life force for the practical control of the environment (Apara).’

Modern science does not admit the twofold nature of Para and Apara, and so it is forced to choose between intellect and intuition. Since the transcendent realm cannot be measured by scientific instruments or known by direct sense perception, it is rejected as a falsehood. This, however, leads to a difficulty.

Although the bulk of science was dissected with the scalpel of logic, it was still the genius who intuitively discovered a field or an approach that then became a staple for the researchers who followed him. Intuition produced those eureka moments without which science and logic might have stagnated. Indeed, a theory of the mind and consciousness continues to evade psychology. This intuition is generally considered to be the result of extensive study and/or experience, which leads to synaptic connections in the brain and, in turn, to insight.

But this does not explain how Ramanujan could discover complex mathematical formulas without prior mathematical training, or how a Muthuswami Dikshitar could produce kritis that encode layer upon layer of meanings.

While these phenomena could be dismissed as flukes, the fundamental limitations of logic are undismissible. Logic, especially the bivalent logic of Aristotle, which is the foundation of modern computing, has found its hard limits in the form of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Heidegger’s temporal limits of logic. In the empirical field as well, observation has hit physical limits, as set by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and quantum theories of reality. Science today points towards a logically indeterminate nature of reality, but it is unable to admit intuition as defined in IKS as a valid approach.

In IKS terminology, modern science can be explained in terms of the Buddhist concept of Prapakatva. In Nagarjuna's philosophical framework, it refers to the pragmatist view that truth is confirmed by the practical expectations it raises, by its utility. In other words, a piece of knowledge is considered "true" because it successfully delivers what it promises, even if it is not the ultimate or absolute Truth.

Modern science has produced enormous physical utility, and thus it was considered to have hit upon the truth about reality. However, science could only capture a sliver of reality, that of the Apara category. To advance, one needs the amalgamation of reason and intuition as exists in IKS.

IKS as the middle path

The significance of IKS is that it proposes a method for cultivating this intuition without eschewing reason, as the romantics did. This method includes both the acquisition of knowledge—in the form of Shravana, Manana, and Nidhidhyasana—and the purification of Chitta, an aspect of the mind. Purification of chitta is considered to be of paramount importance, because an unpurified Chitta may still receive intuition, but that intuition may lead to incorrect knowledge.

Ultimately, one of the most profound integrations of reason and intuition in Indian Knowledge Systems finds its expression in the Pavamana Mantra: Asato Ma Sadgamaya — Lead me from the unreal to the Real. It captures the spirit of reason, since it constantly assesses its knowledge and seeks greater clarity. It also captures the spirit of intuition through the word “gamaya”. Gamaya, from the root word √gam (which means “to go”), is a second-person causative, meaning “make me go” or “lead me”. When agency is attributed to the higher realm of Para, intuition automatically flows.

The authors are based at IISc Bangalore and have recently published a textbook for higher secondary school students titled “Indian Knowledge Systems – A Primer”. A companion volume, “Indian Knowledge Systems – An Undergraduate Text”, is in preparation.

To buy book online

To read all articles by authors

To read all articles on Education – Indic  

Also read

1. The Limits of Reductionism create an Opportunity for Indian Knowledge Systems

2. What can IKS Contribute to Modern Academia

3. What is KNOWLEDGE