Ways of Knowing

An overview of the different numbers of valid ways of knowing in Indian tenet systems.

According to the Sautrantika tenet system, there are seven ways of knowing an object. To understand the seven in more detail, we first need to know what a way of knowing (“lorig” in Tibetan) is.

Distorted cognition is a way of knowing that takes its own object in an inverted manner.

Indecisive wavering is a mental factor in conceptual cognition that vacillates between two conclusions concerning its object.

Bare cognition is a fresh, nonfraudulent awareness that is non-deceptive and parted from concepts.

A semblance of a bare cognition is an awareness that is deceptive with respect to its appearing object.

A summary of the main assertions unique to the Gelug tradition, concerning cognition theory, the Indian Buddhist tenet systems, karma, the three times, and many more.

Existent phenomena are defined as what is validly knowable. In the Sautrantika system, existent phenomena are divided into nonstatic objective entities and static metaphysical ones.

An overview of the Sautrantika list of the seven ways of knowing, which include valid and non-valid ways of knowing.

This eighteenth century text concerns the mind and the ways in which it knows things, and is written from the point of view of the Gelug interpretation of the True Aspectarian branch of the Sautrantika tenet system of Indian Buddhism.