Lecture 8 part 1

Question 1

what is mihamsa justification for their belief system

Answer 1

The Mihamsa school believes that knowledge should be taken to be correct unless contradicted by another source of knowledge. For example one does not challenge sensory perception unless it is contradicted by another degree of sensory perception (why don’t we question if the world around us exists, because visual knowledge is not much different from verbal knowledge). Similarly the vedas cannot be proven false unless they are suggested to be so by some outside arguement. They argue that cognition of something proves two things to be true, one is the self and the other is the object which one has knowledge of.

Question 2

What is their makeup of reality-substances, qualities etc.

Answer 2

1. Substances
2. Qualities
3. universalities
4. Particulars
5. Absence and negation
6. Action
7. Darkness
   8.Sound
   Don’t accept inividuators

Question 3

How do buddhists disagree with them?

Answer 3

Buddhist claim that creating sentences and language is the means of inventing things that are empty and constantly changing like physical objects. In order to achieve liberation one must not dwell on these made up objects but move past them by calming the mind.

Question 4

How does the mihamsa belief system differ from traditional hindu schools?

Answer 4

Traditional hindu schools emphasize that the goal of life should be liberating the self from the external world whereas mihamsa focuses on prakrithi or performing rituals according to validate the cosmos.