Perception and Language in Advaita-vedānta. A translation of Dharmarāja’s “Vedānta-paribhāshā” with a study thereon

Abstract

The present publication includes a first Russian translation of the fragment from the first chapter of Dharmarāja’s “Vedānta-paribhāshā” (17th century) as well as a research paper dedicated to the theory of direct perception and the role of language in later Advaita Vedānta. The paper shows that the originality of the Advaita theory lies in the way it attributes immediacy to cognition through words which in other schools of Indian philosophy is considered as a form of an indirect or mediate knowledge. In connection with this the author explores the Advaita theory of evocative function pertaining to language in Śaṅkara’s exegesis of Śrūti texts, analyzing his methods of exegesis along with their application to the interpretation of ordinary statements in Dharmarāja’s doctrine, and detects the elements of “realism” and “naturalism” in the late Advaita idealist theory of cognition.