Pramāṇa
Pramāṇa · pra-māṇa, “means of valid knowledge”
Grammar: neuter noun, from the root mā (to measure) with pra: “that by which a thing is measured”, the means of right knowing.
Meaning: a means of valid knowledge, such as pratyaksha (direct perception) and anumāna (inference). The Bhāgavata counts four, and teaches that Śrī Hari, the witness at their root, is not reached by any of them.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa names the pramāṇas in Śrī Kṛshṇa‘s teaching to Uddhava and in the stutis to Śrī Hari.
The four pramāṇas. Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that there are four pramāṇas: śruti (the Veda), pratyaksha, aitihya (tradition, what the great ones are known to hold) and anumāna. Each shows the world of duality to be mithyā, not ultimately real. Śruti says, “neha nānāsti kiñcana”, there is no manifoldness here at all; in pratyaksha nothing comes into experience as other than caitanya (consciousness); aitihya is the well-known teaching of the great ones that the world is mithyā; and anumāna is the inference that the world is mithyā because it is seen. Therefore the man of discernment must become detached from the world of duality (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 19).
Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that a man, above all, is his own guru: joining inference to his own experience, he gains his good (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 7). Rahūgaṇa tells Jaḍabharata that the fruit of karma, known by perception and inference, seems real; yet Jaḍabharata says it rests only on names and forms and does not stand before the paramārtha, and so Rahūgaṇa’s mind is confused (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 12).
Śrī Hari beyond the pramāṇas. Pṛthu tells his people that Śrī Hari is not reached by the pramāṇas beginning with direct perception (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 21), and the same is said in the rāsa account (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 29). The wives of Kāliya praise Śrī Kṛshṇa as the witness-consciousness at the root of the pramāṇas, the maker of the Veda and the one the Veda teaches (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 16). At the close of the Purāṇa, Sūta says that words describing sense-pleasures without describing Śrī Hari, who is beyond the pramāṇas, are useless and untrue, and that only words in which his qualities shine are true, auspicious and purifying (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 12).
Related terms: Pratyaksha · Anumāna · Śruti · Aitihya · Mithyā · Avidyā
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 21; Skandha 5, Chapter 12; Skandha 10, Chapters 16, 29; Skandha 11, Chapters 7, 19; Skandha 12, Chapter 12