The Parata@h-prama@nya doctrine of Nyaya and the
Svata@h-prama@nya doctrine of Mima@msa.

The doctrine of the self-validity of knowledge (svata@h-prama@nya) forms the cornerstone on which the whole structure of the Mima@msa philosophy is based.  Validity means the certitude of truth.  The Mima@msa philosophy asserts that all knowledge excepting the action of remembering (sm@rti) or memory is valid in itself, for it itself certifies its own truth, and neither depends on any other extraneous condition nor on any other knowledge for its validity.  But Nyaya holds that this self-validity of knowledge is a question which requires an explanation.  It is true that under certain conditions a piece of knowledge is produced in us, but what is meant by saying that this knowledge is a proof of its own truth?  When we perceive anything as blue, it is the direct result of visual contact, and this visual contact cannot certify that the knowledge generated is true, as the visual contact is not in any touch with the knowledge

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[Footnote 1:  There is a story that Kumarila, not being able to convert Prabhakara, his own pupil, to his views, attempted a trick and pretended that he was dead.  His disciples then asked Prabhakara whether his burial rites should be performed according to Kumarila’s views or Prabhakara’s.  Prabhakara said that his own views were erroneous, but these were held by him only to rouse up Kumarila’s pointed attacks, whereas Kumarila’s views were the right ones.  Kumarila then rose up and said that Prabhakara was defeated, but the latter said he was not defeated so long as he was alive.  But this has of course no historic value.]

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it has conditioned.  Moreover, knowledge is a mental affair and how can it certify the objective truth of its representation?  In other words, how can my perception “a blue thing” guarantee that what is subjectively perceived as blue is really so objectively as well?  After my perception of anything as blue we do not have any such perception that what I have perceived as blue is really so.  So this so-called self-validity of knowledge cannot be testified or justified by any perception.  We can only be certain that knowledge has been produced by the perceptual act, but there is nothing in this knowledge or its revelation of its object from which we can infer that the perception is also objectively valid or true.  If the production of any knowledge should certify its validity then there would be no invalidity, no illusory knowledge, and following our perception of even a mirage we should never come to grief.  But we are disappointed often in our perceptions, and this proves that when we practically follow the directions of our perception we are undecided as to its validity, which can only be ascertained by the correspondence of the perception with what we find later on in practical experience.  Again, every