Knowledge (jñāna, vidyā) is a fundamental category of Indian religion and philosophy, denoting not only knowledge of the world, but also higher knowledge of the true nature of reality, which is a liberating cognition. In a more technical sense, in philosophy jñāna can be translated as “judgment,” “cognition,” or “awareness,” and there was a rigorous debate in classical Indian philosophy about knowledge and its relation to perception and self-awareness. The term vidyā refers to any knowledge or science and was traditionally organized into four branches:

1.  the triple Veda;

2.  logi…