RBSE VU Samanya Darshan key terms

In the Rigveda, the cosmic order or truth that governs the regular movement of nature, gods, and moral conduct. It is the earliest Vedic idea underlying later notions of dharma and karma.

In the Upanishads, the ultimate, infinite reality underlying the whole universe; impersonal ground of being and consciousness. Realising Brahman as one's own self is the aim of Upanishadic teaching.

The innermost self or essence of a person. Upanishadic thinkers identify Atman with Brahman, while Nyaya and Mimamsa treat it as a distinct, eternal substance that experiences and acts.

In Advaita Vedanta, the power by which the one reality appears as a manifold world. It is beginningless and is neither real nor unreal; ignorance of Brahman is what sustains it.

Ignorance, especially ignorance of the true nature of the self. In Advaita it is the root cause of bondage and is removed only by knowledge of Brahman, not by action.

The materialist school of Indian thought, also called Lokayata, which accepts perception as the only valid means of knowledge and denies an afterlife, karma, and the authority of scripture.

Another name for the Charvaka materialist tradition. It holds that the body is conscious, that the elements dissolve at death, and that pleasure in this life is the rational human aim.

The Jain doctrine of many-sidedness: every object has countless aspects, so any single statement about it is only partially true. It grounds tolerance of opposing viewpoints in philosophical debate.

The Jain method of qualified predication, in which each assertion is prefixed with 'syat' (in some respect) because reality is many-sided. It issues in the sevenfold scheme of conditional judgements.

Non-violence or harmlessness toward all living beings, a central Jain vow and a key value in Buddhist ethics and in Gandhi's political thought. It is linked to the doctrine of karma.

The core of the Buddha's teaching: suffering exists, it has a cause in craving, it can cease, and the eightfold path leads to that cessation. They structure Buddhist soteriology and ethics.

The Buddhist doctrine of no-self: no permanent, unchanging self or soul exists in persons or phenomena. What we call a person is a stream of impermanent aggregates.

Impermanence: the teaching that all conditioned things arise, change, and pass away. It is one of the three marks of existence and grounds Buddhist accounts of suffering and attachment.

In Buddhism, the cessation of craving and suffering, and release from the cycle of rebirth. It is not annihilation but the end of clinging to a self and to conditioned existence.

A valid means or source of knowledge. Indian schools disagree about how many there are; Nyaya accepts four, while Charvaka and some others accept only perception.

Perception, the direct cognition arising from contact between a sense organ and its object. It is the most widely accepted pramana and the only one Charvaka allows.

Inference, the knowledge of something not directly perceived from a sign or reason together with a known relation of invariable concomitance. Nyaya analyses it in five-membered syllogistic form.

Invariable concomitance, the universal relation between a reason and what it invariably accompanies, such as smoke and fire. Establishing vyapti is the central problem of Nyaya inference.

A fallacious reason or pseudo-inference, where an apparent ground fails to satisfy the conditions for valid inference. Nyaya classifies these into errors such as the deviating or contradictory reason.

Verbal testimony as a means of knowledge, accepted when the speaker is reliable. For Mimamsa the Vedas are eternal, authorless, and therefore the supreme testimony.

The revealed corpus of Vedic texts, including the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads. Mimamsa regards it as authorless and authoritative on ritual obligation.

The earlier Mimamsa school of Jaimini, focused on the interpretation of Vedic ritual injunctions. Its central aim is to establish dharma as what ought to be done.

Another name for Vedanta, the school built on the Brahma Sutras and the Upanishads, which treats Brahman as the central topic and seeks knowledge of ultimate reality.

Shankara's non-dualist Vedanta, holding that Brahman alone is real and the individual self is not ultimately distinct from it. Plurality is explained through maya and avidya.

Ramanuja's qualified non-dualism, in which Brahman is one but contains real differentiated modes, namely conscious selves and the material world, as attributes of the whole.

Madhva's dualist Vedanta, which affirms a real and eternal distinction between Brahman, individual souls, and matter. Devotion and grace are central to liberation in this school.

In Samkhya, pure consciousness, which is inactive and witnesses the modifications of matter. Its confusion with Prakriti is the cause of bondage; discrimination between them brings liberation.

In Samkhya, primordial matter or nature, the unconscious source of the world, composed of three gunas. It evolves into intellect, ego, mind, senses, and elements for the sake of Purusha.

The three constituents of Prakriti in Samkhya: sattva (clarity), rajas (activity), and tamas (inertia). Their changing balance accounts for the variety of physical and mental phenomena.

Patanjali's eight-limbed discipline: moral restraints, observances, posture, breath control, withdrawal, concentration, meditation, and absorption. Its goal is the stilling of mental modifications.

A term with several senses: cosmic order, moral duty, virtue, and the defining property of a thing. In Mimamsa it is the ritual obligation revealed by Vedic injunction.

Action and the causal residue of action that binds a person to future experience and rebirth. Indian schools differ on whether karma is a material trace or a moral law.

Liberation from the cycle of rebirth and suffering, the highest human goal in most Indian schools. The means to it differ: knowledge in Advaita, devotion in theistic Vedanta, isolation in Yoga.

The dilemma raised in Plato's dialogue: is an action pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious? It challenges divine-command theories of morality.

In Plato, the eternal, non-physical pattern or essence that particular things imperfectly imitate. Knowledge is of Forms; opinion is of their sensible copies.

Aristotle's term for human flourishing or living well, the highest good and aim of action. It is achieved through the exercise of virtue over a complete life, not through pleasure alone.

Descartes's 'I think, therefore I am', the first indubitable truth reached by methodological doubt. It establishes the existence of the thinking self as a foundation for knowledge.

The epistemological view that reason, independent of sense experience, can yield substantive knowledge of reality. Its leading modern figures are Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.

The view that all knowledge derives from sense experience and that the mind begins as a blank slate. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume are its principal modern representatives.

The 'blank slate' image used by Locke to describe the mind before experience writes on it. It expresses the empiricist denial of innate ideas.

Kant's supreme moral principle, commanding action only on maxims that could be willed as universal law. It binds unconditionally and treats persons as ends in themselves.

The consequentialist theory that the right action is the one producing the greatest overall good, usually understood as happiness or welfare. Bentham and Mill are its classic exponents.

An approach centred on character traits rather than acts or rules, asking what kind of person one should be. Aristotle's account of practical wisdom and the mean is its classical source.