02
How Truth Is Known
before this →One Reality, Many Ways of Knowing
If the goal is satya, the first practical question is: with what do we know? The tradition answers with a short, rigorous list — and a rule that does the heavy lifting: the instrument must suit the object.
Six instruments, chosen to fit
Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta
Different schools accept different sets, but all agree on the principle: perception reaches the perceptible, inference reaches the inferable, and only testimony reaches what no one can see.
the resolutionThis is why “Veda vs science” is a category error.
They are not rivals; they are instruments for different objects.
PRATYAKṢAperception — the seen
ANUMĀNAinference — the inferred
ŚABDAtestimony — the unseen
What this buys you
Once the instrument–object rule is in place, the whole corpus reorganizes. Jyotiṣa and Āyurveda sit in the seen domain and are answerable to observation. Dharma and Brahman sit in the unseen domain and are answerable to śabda. Neither can colonize the other.
introduces →pratyakṣaanumānaśabdadṛṣṭaadṛṣṭa