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47 CHAPTER FOUR The Source of Valid Knowledge In chapter 3 we discussed the Advaita understanding of the nature of the self (ātman). The ātman is self-existent awareness, limitless and non-dual. The self (ātman), in other words, is non-different from the infinite (brahman). The purpose of Advaita is to teach this identity between ātman and brahman as proclaimed in the great sentences (mahāvakyas) of the Upanis³ads and, in particular, in the Chāndogya Upanis³ad (6.8.7) instruction, “That Thou Art” (tat tvam asi). These claims about the nature of the self are different from the assumptions that are commonly held. The self is generally equated with the body and mind complex and believed to be subject to all the characteristics of these such as birth and death. It is thought to be incomplete and different in each being.What is the source of these extraordinary Advaita claims about the nature of the self? What is the traditional Advaita self-understanding regarding the authority for its view of the self?1 T H E S I G N I F I CA N C E O F A VA LI D M E A N S O F K N OW LED G E The Sanskrit word pramā is used to denote knowledge that is valid, and the source of any valid knowledge is termed a pramān³a. A pramān³a, therefore , is defined by Advaita as the cause of valid knowledge (pramā karan³am pramān³am).2 In the view of Śanùkara, knowledge is produced only by a valid means of knowledge and the claims of any source must be evaluated by its ability to do so.3 A means of knowledge is or is not such according as it leads or does not lead to valid knowledge. Otherwise even a post, for instance, would be considered a means of knowledge in perceiving sound etc.4 Śanùkara does not express any doubts or reservations about the ability of the pramān³as to generate knowledge in their respective spheres. He claims, in fact, that the day to day affairs of the world will become impossible if the pramān³as 48 THE ADVAITA WORLDVIEW are considered to be unreliable. People who have experienced that hunger and thirst are satisfied by eating and drinking infer that the continued use of these means will produce similar results. If such inferences are doubted, argues Śanùkara, eating and drinking will not be possible.5 T H E LI M I T S O F P ERC EP T I O N A N D I N F ER EN C E Which source of valid knowledge (pramān³a) is appropriate for knowing brahman , which is non-different from the self (ātman)? Throughout his commentaries , Śanùkara explains why sense perception (pratyaks³a) is not an appropriate means for knowing brahman. Each of the five sense organs is capable of revealing a quality that is unique to its own nature. Forms, sounds, taste, scent, and sensation are the qualities known through the senses. Although brahman is an ever-existing entity, it cannot be known through the senses because it possesses none of these qualities. It is without form, sound, taste, scent, and sensation . In the words of Kat ³ha Upanis³ad (3:15): It has no sound or touch, no appearance, taste, or smell; It is without beginning or end, undecaying and eternal; When a man perceives it, fixed and beyond the immense, He is freed from the jaws of death. Brahman is limitless and non-dual awareness; to be the object of a sense organ is to be finite and delimited. A brahman that can be known through the senses is a contradiction. However magnified one may imagine the capacity of the senses to be, these are still an inappropriate pramān³a for knowing brahman. Along with the limits of the sense organs, there is also the impossibility of objectifying brahman, the limitless. Perceptual knowledge involves a process of objectification or knowing by making things the objects of our knowledge. By the act of objectification, the things that we wish to know become available for examination and analysis. Brahman, as we have seen in chapter 3, is awareness, the illuminator of the body, senses, and the mind. It is the constant subject and its objectification would require the existence of another self, which does not exist. As Śanùkara...

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