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PRELIMINARY
179 main idea underlying the inclusion was that the contributions of history to philosophy should not be ignored. It also indicates the reverence with which the authority of tradition was regarded then (p. 91). But it would be wrong to conclude that the exponents of the systems surrendered their judgments by indiscriminately admitting as valid whatever belief had come down from the past, even though it were taught in the Veda. Such a course was indeed impossible as matters stood at the time. There was, on the one hand, the whole of the complex teaching of the Veda handed down from the past, and there was, on the other, a mass of heterodox thought which as the result of free-thinking in different circles exhibited a good deal of diversity. Philosophy as embodied in tradition was thus largely of a conflicting nature, and the need for testing the mutual compatibility of the elements constituting each creed was felt to be imperative. Both the orthodox and the heterodox accordingly set about examining their traditional beliefs, and tried to interpret them consistently. The interpretation involves a great deal of independent reasoning; and it is the result of this reasoned inquiry that we have to understand by Sabda as originally conceived in Indian philosophy. The pramāņa, therefore, signifies not tradition in general, but systematized tradition. It is such systematic interpretation of the teaching of the Veda that is, for example, the essential aim of the Mimāmsā system. Though both sets of thinkers admit tradition as a source of philosophic knowledge, there is an important difference between the ways in which it is conceived by them. For the heterodox, this tradition at no stage goes beyond human (pauruşeya) experience, including in that expression what can be known not only through perception and reasoning but also through a higher facultyno matter what name we give it, insight or intuition. In this sense the value of tradition lies in its communicating to
Not all the hererodox schools believe in such a higher faculty. So Indian schools may be classified under three heads: (i.) those that recognize only perception and inference, (ii.) those that recognize intuition in addition, and (iii) those that substitute revelation for intuition.
