Observations on yogipratyaksa

From a relatively marginal theme in the cursus of the yoga adepts, the issue of yogipratyaksa – the special power of perception that most of the Indian traditions attribute to the yogis – opens to a far wider dimension, absolutely crucial for Indian philosophy as a whole: the question of whether a seeker of truth may do without revealed tradition. In addressing the issue of yogipratyaksa, the Buddhists are driven by two different yet concentric aims: on the one hand, to admit in the individual the capacity of seeking for truth by his forces alone, independently from the support of any revelation, and, on the other, to protect the central tenets of Buddhism from brahmanical critics, who through sophisticated dialectics are capable of questioning any truth obtained by way of mere reasoning.