Concepts in Brahmanical Philosophy in Classical India

This chapter explores the Brahmanical equivalents of the notion of concept in Western philosophy, and presents two major approaches to the formation of concepts: the imagistic theories of forms and the grammar-based theories of meaning. The first part of the chapter explores the imagistic approach, which appears in the Vedic model of the divine origin of forms. This model inspired the representationalism of the Sāṃkhya philosophical system, according to which external objects are reflected in the mind in the form of impressions (pratyayas), the properties of which are recognized in a general (sāmānya) form. The second parts discusses the grammar-based theories of meaning in the context of debates between the Grammarian, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, and the Mīmāṃsā schools. The realism about universals (jāti) in Nyāya and its theory of the role of ‘conceptual construction’ (vikalpa) in perception is discussed in some detail.