CONTROVERSY ON YOGIC PERCEPTION (YOGIPRATYAKSA) IN INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGY

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the nature of yogic or supernormal perception (yogipratyaksa, yogijnana) in the context of Indian epistemology. By relying on the primary Sanskrit sources of Indian philosophical schools (darsana) and contemporary critical studies the questions are raised: what role is granted to it in the general Indian epistemological scheme (pramanavada)? How yogic perception is described and philosophicaly legitimated? How it is scholastically verified and validated and what kind of controversy was going on among different philosophical schools? On what arguments such perception is refused by orthodox Mimamsa school? A combined - textological semantic, hermeneutical and comparative - methodology is applied. Conclusion is made that yogic perception is recognized and integrated into general scheme of knowledge by almost all Indian schools, though they give different accounts of it. A radical scepticism and refutation of this kind of perception is displayed by the representative of vedic hermeneutics and ritualistic exegesis - Kumarila Bhatta (7 AD) of Mimamsa school. However, what the followers of this school denied was not the potentiality of the yogic perception itself, but consistency of logical argumentation, the ability of transparent transmission of such knowledge to others, and the validity of such experience in the legitimisation of divine revelation (sruti).