Chairperson:
Marco Ferrante
The purpose of this panel is to investigate a crucial aspect of the epistemological debate in classical India: The role and the scope of extra-ordinary cognitions. The topic is typically associated with the controversy occurring between the Brahmanical school of Mīmāṃsā and the Buddhist logical-epistemological school: Its mature phase was initiated by the work of the Buddhist philosopher Dignāga, roughly at the beginning of the 6th c. CE. In the last decade the dispute has gained the attention of several scholars who have gone through its different aspects, often stressing its soteriological overtone. Apparently the core of the question consisted of understanding whether the access to the ultimate reality should be based on traditional teachings or on an extraordinary type of intuition. Although the standard scheme pigeonholes the Brahmanical thinkers as upholders of the former view and the Buddhists of the latter, this is certainly a wrong generalization based on the assumption that the Mīmāṃsā view can be safely extended to the whole Brahmanical field. That is hardly the case; indeed most Brahmanical traditions accept without question the existence of extra-ordinary cognitions, although with different degrees of commitment.
In order to explore this complexity we solicit papers investigating how the problem of extra-ordinary cognitions is dealt with and contextualized within the different Brahmanical traditions (Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, both Mīmāṃsās, Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Vyākaraṇa speculation but also Epics) by keeping in mind these questions:
1) Does the belief in extra-ordinary cognitions always have a soteriological connotation?
2) If so, is there a way to conciliate the existence of extra-ordinary cognitions with the belief in the teachings of a sacred text (in this case the Veda)?
3) Is it possible to outline a history of the evolution of the problem in the early Brahmanical speculation?
Basic Bibliography:
Franco, E. with Eigner D. (2009). Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschfaten.
K.A. Jacobsen (ed.) (2012). Yoga Powers: Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through Meditation and Concentration. Leiden: Brill
McClintock, S. (2010). Omniscience and the Rethoric of Reason. Wisdom Publications: Boston.
Asiatica 