The Priority of Śabda-pramāṇa in Gauḍīya Epistemology
Why does the Gauḍīya tradition place śabda above pratyakṣa and anumāna? This study traces the argument from the Tattva-sandarbha and shows that the priority is not a dogmatic posit but a consequence of the tradition's account of the object of theological knowledge.
Jīva Gosvāmī opens the Ṣaṭ-sandarbha by establishing the hierarchy of pramāṇas. The argument is brief, almost compressed, and easy to misread as mere assertion. It is not.1
The object determines the instrument
Pratyakṣa and anumāna are sufficient for objects accessible to sense and inference. The object of theology — Bhagavān as he is in himself — is by definition not such an object. To require sensory verification of a supersensuous reality is to commit a category error.2
What this does not entail
The priority of śabda is not the abolition of reason. Reason is indispensable as the instrument by which the meaning of śabda is recovered.
- 1.Tattva-sandarbha, anuccheda 9–11.
- 2.Cf. Madhva, Pramāṇa-lakṣaṇa, on the same hierarchy.
- Gosvāmī, Jīva. Tattva-sandarbha. Critical edition by Gopīparāṇadhana Dāsa, 1995.
- The Architecture of Acintya-bhedābhedaDr. T. Madhusūdana · Dr. J. Sanātana