Language: EnglishPages: 306About the BookDuring the years 1925-28, the writer had the privilege of occupying the Prabodh Chandra Basu Malik Chair of Indian Philosophy at the Bengal national Council of Education. In Compliance with the wishes of the founder of this chair he was called upon to undertake some investigation in Indian Philosophy and publish the results of his labour. This volume represents his work in discharge of that duty.He attempts to study critically some important epistemological theories of one of the chief schools of Indian Philosophy, namely, the monistic Advaita School of Vedanta. Western Philosophy has generally recognized two ultimate sources of knowledge, immediate knowledge or perception, and mediate knowledge or inference. But there has been a variety of opinions on this matter among the different schools of Indian Philosophy. Some hold that perception is the only ultimate source of knowledge. Some accept both perception and inference. Others add a third, testimony or authority, to these. Still others hold that comparison is an additional independent source of knowledge and should be combined with the above three. Others again contend that there is a fifth kind of knowledge, postulation, which is not reducible to any of the preceding. A few other thinkers hold that there is also a sixth type-non-perception-from which primary negative judgments are derived and which cannot possibly be reduced to any of the above. These views are not mere dogmatic assertions. Each school gives elaborate arguments for its own position. This book deals with the Vedanta standpoints of these different kinds of knowledge, with all the arguments given by the Vedantins to prove their independence and ultimacy, are critically discussed here in the light of modern Western concepts, and
