Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In premodern South Asia, epistemology (pramāṇaśāstra)—the study of knowledge and the methods of acquiring it—was rarely construed as a purely theoretical enterprise. It was a discipline intended to serve practical purposes. This approach to epistemology is found in the philosophical tradition called Nyāya. The defenders of this tradition, the Naiyāyikas, took Nyāya to be a science of rational inquiry that could assist practitioners of other sciences like economics and government in realizing their distinctive practical aims. These thinkers were committed to Nyāya rationalism: the view that rational inquiry can help us discover all practically important truths about ourselves and the world. Though this view was popular in premodern South Asia, it wasn’t without its critics. This monograph focuses on one such critic of Nyāya rationalism: Śrīharṣa (twelfth century ce). Śrīharṣa agreed with the Naiyāyikas that liberation (mokṣa or apavarga), that is, complete freedom from suffering, is the highest aim of human existence, and that we can achieve it by discovering the truth about the self and its relation to the world. But he rejected the claim that rational inquiry can help us discover that truth. The monograph examines how Śrīharṣa defended his anti-rationalist stance against Nyāya epistemologists in his only surviving philosophical work, A Confection of Refutation (Khaṇḍanakhaṇdakhādya).</jats:p>