RBSE VU Samanya Darshan flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Darśana

Sanskrit term meaning 'seeing' or 'viewpoint'; in Indian philosophy it denotes a systematic school of thought, of which six orthodox and several heterodox schools are traditionally counted.

Āstika vs nāstika

Āstika schools accept the authority of the Vedas (Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta); nāstika schools reject it (Cārvāka, Jainism, Buddhism).

Ṛta

In Vedic thought, the cosmic order or truth that governs the regularity of nature and sacrifice; it is the forerunner of the later concept of dharma.

Tat tvam asi

'That thou art'-a mahāvākya from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad asserting the identity of the inner self (ātman) with ultimate reality (Brahman).

Turīya

The 'fourth' state of the self in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, beyond waking, dream, and deep sleep; it is pure consciousness and is identified with Brahman.

Charvaka pramana

Cārvāka accepts perception (pratyakṣa) alone as a valid means of knowledge, rejecting inference and testimony as reliable sources of certainty about the world.

Lokayata

Alternative name for the Cārvāka materialist school, meaning 'that which pertains to the ordinary world'; it denies afterlife, karma, and Vedic authority.

Syādvāda

Jain doctrine of sevenfold predication: every assertion is qualified by 'syāt' (in some respect), allowing compatible yet seemingly contradictory descriptions of a complex reality.

Pratītyasamutpāda

Buddhist dependent origination: all phenomena arise in dependence on conditions, so nothing exists independently or permanently; it grounds the doctrine of no-self.

Anātman

The Buddhist no-self doctrine: there is no permanent, unchanging self or soul; what we call a person is a stream of conditioned, impermanent constituents.

Pañcāvayava

The five-membered Nyāya syllogism: pratijñā (thesis), hetu (reason), udāharaṇa (example), upanaya (application), and nigamana (conclusion).

Pramāṇa

A valid means of knowledge. Nyāya recognizes four: perception, inference, comparison, and verbal testimony; Mīmāṃsā adds postulation and non-apprehension.

Samavāya

Vaiśeṣika's relation of inherence, which binds a whole to its parts, a quality to its substance, and a universal to its instances; it is not itself a substance.

Anyathākhyāti

Nyāya's theory of error: in illusion a real object is apprehended but mislocated or mischaracterized, so error involves misplacement rather than pure fabrication.

Puruṣa and prakṛti

Sāṃkhya's dualism: puruṣa is pure, plural consciousness; prakṛti is the single primordial matter that evolves into the world when its guṇas become unbalanced.

Three guṇas

Sāṃkhya's three constituents of prakṛti: sattva (clarity, lightness), rajas (activity, passion), and tamas (inertia, darkness); their equilibrium is disturbed to create the world.

Kaivalya

Sāṃkhya and Yoga's goal of liberation: the isolation of puruṣa from prakṛti, attained through discriminative knowledge that consciousness is not the material world.

Aṣṭāṅga yoga

Patañjali's eight limbs: yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi; together they lead to the stilling of mental fluctuations.

Anirvacanīya-khyāti

Advaita's theory of error: the illusory object is neither real nor unreal but indefinable, produced by ignorance (avidyā) superimposing appearance on Brahman.

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Rāmānuja's qualified non-dualism: Brahman is one, but souls and matter are real as the body of Brahman; liberation comes through bhakti and self-surrender.

Pañcabheda

Madhva's Dvaita doctrine of five real differences: God and souls, God and matter, souls and matter, souls among themselves, and material things among themselves.

Prasthāna-trayī

The three foundational texts of Vedānta: the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavadgītā, and the Brahma Sūtras; commentators write bhāṣyas on all three.

Theory of Forms

Plato's doctrine that sensible particulars are imperfect copies of eternal, non-physical Forms, with the Form of the Good as the highest principle of reality and knowledge.

Four causes

Aristotle's explanatory framework: the material cause (what it is made of), efficient cause (what produces it), formal cause (its essence), and final cause (its purpose).

Eudaimonia

Aristotle's term for human flourishing or happiness, achieved through the exercise of virtue and practical wisdom over a complete life rather than as a momentary feeling.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am': even radical doubt presupposes a thinking subject, providing the first indubitable foundation for knowledge.

Monads

Leibniz's simple, indivisible, windowless substances that constitute reality; they do not interact causally but unfold in pre-established harmony ordained by God.

Esse est percipi

Berkeley's principle 'to be is to be perceived': material objects exist only as collections of ideas in perceiving minds, ultimately sustained by God.

Hume's fork

Hume's distinction between relations of ideas (a priori, certain, analytic) and matters of fact (a posteriori, contingent, grounded in experience and custom).

Gettier problem

Cases in which a belief is justified and true yet intuitively not knowledge, showing that the justified-true-belief analysis of knowledge is insufficient without further conditions.

Agrippa's trilemma

The regress argument in epistemology: any justification leads to infinite regress, circularity, or a dogmatic stopping point; foundationalism and coherentism respond differently.

Square of opposition

Diagram relating categorical propositions A, E, I, O: A and O, E and I are contradictories; A and E contraries; I and O subcontraries; A and I, E and O subalterns.

Categorical imperative

Kant's unconditional moral law: act only on maxims you could will as universal law, and treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.