of the philosophical Issues more essential
than the Dialectic of controversy.

_Prama@na_ in Sanskrit signifies the means and the movement
by which knowledge is acquired, _pramata_ means the subject or
the knower who cognizes, _prama_ the result of prama@na--right
knowledge, _prameya_ the object of knowledge, and _prama@nya_ the
validity of knowledge acquired. The validity of knowledge is
sometimes used in the sense of the faithfulness of knowledge to
its object, and sometimes in the sense of an inner notion of
validity in the mind of the subject--the knower (that his perceptions
are true), which moves him to work in accordance with
his perceptions to adapt himself to his environment for the
attainment of pleasurable and the avoidance of painful things.
The question wherein consists the prama@nya of knowledge has
not only an epistemological and psychological bearing but a
metaphysical one also. It contains on one side a theory of knowledge
based on an analysis of psychological experience, and on
the other indicates a metaphysical situation consistent with the
theory of knowledge. All the different schools tried to justify
a theory of knowledge by an appeal to the analysis and interpretation
of experience which the others sometimes ignored or
sometimes regarded as unimportant. The thinkers of different
schools were accustomed often to meet together and defeat one
another in actual debates, and the result of these debates was frequently
very important in determining the prestige of any school
of thought. If a Buddhist for example could defeat a great Nyaya
or Mima@msa thinker in a great public debate attended by many
learned scholars from different parts of the country, his fame at
once spread all over the country and he could probably secure a
large number of followers on the spot. Extensive tours of disputation
were often undertaken by great masters all over the country
for the purpose of defeating the teachers of the opposite schools
and of securing adherents to their own. These debates were therefore
not generally conducted merely in a passionless philosophical

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mood with the object of arriving at the truth but in order to
inflict a defeat on opponents and to establish the ascendency of
some particular school of thought. It was often a sense of personal
victory and of the victory of the school of thought to which the
debater adhered that led him to pursue the debate. Advanced
Sanskrit philosophical works gi