Experience & Philosophy

Madhva's unique position with regards to pramanas resulted in himgiving a lot of weight to individual experiences.For Madhva philosophy without experience does not make any sense whatsoever and philosophy should be corroborated with everday experiences.Experiences often end up teaching more about life than philosophy does.

"In Madhva's view, Advaita's denial of the innate validity of knowledge acquired through sense perception completely undermines our ability to know anything since we must always question the content of our knowledge. This questioning would encompass our knowledge of the sacred canon, which is accessible to us only through our ability to perceive it and to draw inferences from it. Madhva argues that perception and inference must be innately valid and the reality they present us with must be actually and ultimately real since such a position is the only one that allows us to know the content of the Vedas. The Vedas alone are responsible for teaching us about the nature of the self and brahman.

This aspect of Madhva's realist epistemology is important not only because it bolsters Madhva's claim that the atman and brahman are permanently distinct as revealed to us by experience, but because it means that the sacred texts must be read in consonance with the data we receive from our everyday experience, even though the Vedas present us with knowledge of a supra-sensible realm. Madhva argues that the Vedas cannot teach non-difference between the atman and brahman or a lack of true plurality since this would directly contradict our experience."

(Valerie Stoker , Wright State University , from the internet encyclopedia of philosophy)

"Sri Madhva defines philosophy as the determination of things as they are in themselves, Tatva Nirnaya. Experience or anubhava plays a vital role in the process. Experience is the most secure foundation for philosophical speculation. Philosophy not based on experience is barren and experience not inferred by philosophical enquiry is blind and has no significance. Experience possesses the hallmark of personal conviction. Pure experience, shorn of the interpretation due to the active perceiving mind and the ever-present tendency to infer cannot be self-contradictory. Every aspect of experience has been shown to have its proper place in the evaluation of experience."

( C A P Vittal)



"They proved to me by convincing reasons that God does not exist; Afterwards I saw God, for he came and embraced me. And now what am I to believe- the reasoning of others or my own experience? Truth is what the soul has seen and experienced; the rest is appearance, prejudice and opinion." -From the Hour of God