What is the basis

What is the basis?

A common question one might ask is - What is the basis for the mAdhvA philosophy?

mAdhvA philosophy bases its doctrines on a set of valid, authoritative pramANAs. These pramANas help us in understanding all aspects of the universe such as creation, its purpose, the goal of mankind and how to achieve it. The strength of mAdhvA philosophy is in its sound, comprehensive system of pramANas. Many other schools of thought have totally ignored some of the valid pramANAs or based their theories on invalid ones. Handicapped by this, they drastically failed to present the right picture or sometimes were only able to present the wrong one.

We are surrounded by a universe, part of which is directly perceivable by our sense organs. There is also another part which is not directly perceivable. That part of the universe which can be directly perceived falls under the purview of Pratyaksha Pramana. The other part which cannot be directly perceived falls under the purview of anumAna or Agama PramANa. Past experience through Pratyaksha or Agama is a pre-requisite for anumAna. So, it cannot operate independently on objects which cannot be directly perceived. In order to independently gain knowledge about things which are not directly perceivable, we have to rely on Agama PramANa only.

In summary, we cannot rely on a single pramANa for knowledge about everything around us. Some objects exclusively fall under the purview of one pramANa and some others to another pramANa. So, we have to apply the most suitable pramANa to gain knowledge about a particular object. For e.g we apply pratyaxa pramaNa to gain knowledge about the objects which are in contact with our senses. We apply Agama pramaNa to gain knowledge about entities like God, Dharma, Adharma which are not directly perceivable by our ordinary senses. Sometimes, there is also a possibility of a clash of two pramaANas, in which case the dispute is to be resolved according to the prabala pramAna or stronger pramaNa. For e.g A child infers that fire is cold because it is an object. This is disputed by the pratyaxa ‘Fire is hot’ which is known by touching the fire with his hands. As pratyaxa pramANa is stronger than anumAna, the dispute is settled by taking the account of pratyaxa pramaNa and rejecting that of anumAna.

The uniqueness of mAdhva philosophy is that all its theories are perfectly based on and are in full agreement to the right pramANAs w.r.t the objects under consideration. Therefore, mAdhva philosophy is successful in providing perfect and unadulterated knowledge about this Universe.