UGC NET Questions (Paper – 1)

Carvaka philosophers maintain that only perceptual experience can yield trustworthy knowledge of reality. They argue that inference and testimony inevitably depend on assumptions that may be mistaken, leading to illusion or superstition. By restricting pramana to pratyaksha, they seek to ground knowledge in what is directly given to the senses. Thus the single pramana recognised by Carvaka is pratyaksha.

Option A:
Option A is correct because pratyaksha, or perception, is held by Carvaka as the sole reliable means of knowing facts about the world. They rely on immediate sense data such as seeing, hearing or touching as the basis for all justified beliefs. For them, anything that goes beyond perceptual evidence is treated as speculative or unreliable.

Option B:
Option B, anumana, is rejected by Carvaka as an independent pramana because they claim that generalisations about vyapti can never be fully justified. They point out that inference extends beyond what is strictly perceived and therefore can be mistaken. Hence they refuse to grant inferential knowledge an autonomous epistemic status.

Option C:
Option C, sabda, is also denied as a separate pramana since accepting testimony requires trusting speakers whose reliability cannot always be verified perceptually. Carvaka thinkers regard scriptural and traditional authority with suspicion, viewing them as socially constructed rather than cognitively compelling.

Option D:
Option D, upamana, involves comparison-based knowledge through similarity and is again dismissed because it presupposes previous verbal and inferential learning. Carvaka does not accept such mediated cognition as an independent route to truth.