Unit 1 Study tools
Multiple-choice test
This test checks how well you know and understand the topic pages of Unit 1. Each question has four options and one right answer. Some questions ask you to remember a fact, some ask you to explain or compare, and some give a short situation and ask which idea fits it. Every answer comes with a short explanation and a link back to the part of the guide it tests.
You can work in two ways. "Check as you go" marks each answer as soon as you choose it and shows the explanation. Your first choice in this mode is final, but "Try my wrong answers again" lets you redo the questions you missed. "Test, marked at the end" holds back all marks until you press "Finish and mark my test", and then shows your score for each topic. You can also show one topic at a time and shuffle the order of the questions. Your answers are saved on this device, or in your account if you are signed in.
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Answer: C. Some Indian schools speak of consciousnessconsciousnessLiterally: Latin conscire, to know togetherConsciousness is awareness: the fact that we experience anything at all, such as seeing a colour, feeling pain or knowing that we exist.Indian link chit, purusha or atman (pure consciousness), as distinct from chitta and manas (the mind and its contents).Full entry in the glossary as such: a pure awareness with no object. Mainstream psychology has no place for this sense. Option A is tempting, but awareness of something is the sense that mainstream psychology does study, for example in research on attention. Whether consciousness as such exists, and how anyone could study it, is one of the big debates of this course.
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Answer: B. The early Upanishads date from about 700 to 500 BCE. Option A is the date of the Rig Veda, the oldest Indian text, so it is the easiest mix-up. The years 300 to 100 BCE belong to later Upanishads such as the Katha, and the 1st to 2nd century CE is the usual date of the Yoga Sutra.
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Answer: D. The claim check says you may quote your textbook, but a good answer says which date is traditional and which is the scholarly estimate. Historians say only "the 8th century" for ShankaraShankaraशङ्करŚaṅkarasay: shuhng-kuh-ruhIndian philosopher of the 8th century CE, the most influential teacher of Advaita Vedanta, which holds that the true self and ultimate reality are one.Full entry in the glossary, and they place the Yoga Sutra of PatanjaliPatanjaliपतञ्जलिPatañjalisay: puh-tuhn-juh-liThe compiler of the Yoga Sutras, a short classical text on training the mind. Most scholars date it to the 1st or 2nd century CE, and no later than the 5th century.Full entry in the glossary in the 1st or 2nd century CE. Option A is tempting, but the textbooks sometimes give a tradition's own dates next to historians' dates without saying which is which.
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Answer: C. "Indian" names the origin of the ideas, not the people they describe. Rao and Paranjpe compare it with psychoanalysis, which began in Europe but is used everywhere. Option A is the common confusion: research on how Indian people think and feel is the psychology of Indians, and it can use any theory. Rao also notes that Buddhist psychology grew in Sri Lanka, Tibet and Japan as well as in India.
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Answer: C. Psychology built from a culture's own ideas and problems is indigenous psychologyindigenous psychologyLiterally: Latin indigena, born in a placeIndigenous psychology is psychology that grows from a culture's own ideas, problems and ways of knowing, rather than being imported from elsewhere.Indian link Indian psychology is often called an indigenous psychology, but this is debated. Rao and Paranjpe say Indian psychology carries its own theory, while indigenous psychology is an approach that is neutral about theory.Full entry in the glossary. Rao and Paranjpe call it "theory neutral", because it can be done from any point of view. Option B, psychology of Indians, is also true of the study, but that name describes who is studied, not how the work is done. Option D is tempting, but in Rao and Paranjpe's sense Indian psychology is "theory-loaded": it starts from a model rooted in classical Indian thought, such as Yoga's account of the mind.
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Answer: D. Sinha wanted Indian ideas mined for hypotheses and tested "by the application of scientific methodology". His aim was "a universal psychology", one science for everyone. Option A is the view of Rao, Paranjpe and Cornelissen, who treat Indian psychology as a system of its own. Option B is what Sinha warned against: collecting parallels "would keep us on the fringes".
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Answer: B. Rao treats the mind as matter of a very fine, "subtle" kind, and consciousness as not physical at all. Consciousness does not act on the mind; it is "reflected" in it, as light is reflected in a mirror (Rao and Paranjpe, 2016, 1.1.3). Option A is the usual view in neuroscience, which Rao rejects: "the brain does not generate consciousness; it simply reflects consciousness" (Rao, 2008, p. 6). Option C borrows the chariot picture, but in Rao's model consciousness does not act on the mind at all. Option D is the mainstream habit of using consciousness to mean the same as mind.
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Answer: A. Dalal writes that Indian psychology "primarily deals with the inner state of a person, taking consciousness as the primary subject matter of study". The other five features, in his order, are universal in scope, concerned with everyday problems too, spiritual, experiential and applied. Experiential means that knowledge comes from one's own trained experience, checked by a teacher: first-person and second-person methods. Option B is therefore the reverse of his view. Option C contradicts the point that Indian psychology is not the psychology of Indians, and option D describes the experimental tradition of mainstream psychology.
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Answer: B. The Foundations editors write that experimental psychology treated individual differences as "errors". But differential psychology, the branch behind intelligence and personality tests, specialises in measuring how people differ. So the criticism fits experimental psychology, not psychology as a whole. The paradigm-debate page adds that Indian psychology keeps "a constant awareness that each individual is ultimately unique", expressed in svabhavasvabhavaस्वभावsvabhāvasay: svuh-bhaa-vuhLiterally: own being; own nature (sva, own + bhāva, being)Svabhava means a person's own nature: the inborn qualities and tendencies that make each individual different from every other.Western link Close to temperament and character. The idea also fits the idiographic approach, which studies one person in depth. The difference: svabhava is often seen as carried over from past lives, and as pointing to one's proper duty.Full entry in the glossary.
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Answer: C. The guide calls this goal growth beyond normal: Indian psychology "aims at elevating humans to a higher level of being". The aim is not only to bring a troubled person back to the average, which is option B and is what "repair and rebuild" means. The other two options are two of the four mainstream goals, prediction and description.
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Answer: B. Finding out who is likely to drop out is prediction. Prediction is one of the four mainstream goals, and Watson (1913) put two of them at the centre: "the prediction and control of behavior". The Foundations editors contrast mainstream "changes in others" with Indian psychology's aim of "the mastery and transformation of oneself". Option C is tempting, because finding who is at risk begins with description, but the aim here is to say what will happen next year. Prediction is a sensible goal for a school. It is not among the goals your lectures list for Indian psychology.
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Answer: D. Rahul is half right. Stories from the epics and the PuranasPuranaपुराणpurāṇasay: pu-raa-nuhLiterally: ancient; of old times (from purā, formerly)The Puranas are long Sanskrit texts of myths, legends and family histories of gods, heroes and saints. Tradition counts eighteen major ones. Most people know them through retelling.Western link Closest to a body of sacred myth and legend in any scripture tradition. The difference: the Puranas mix stories of creation, family histories, law and devotion, and were meant to be performed and retold.Full entry in the glossary reached people who could not read, and poet-saints such as Jnaneshwar carried spiritual teaching into Marathi. But the law books (DharmashastrasDharmashastraधर्मशास्त्रdharmaśāstrasay: dhuhr-muh-shaas-truhLiterally: teaching (śāstra) on dharmaThe Dharmashastras are Sanskrit treatises on dharma: duties, law, ritual and social rules for people of each social group and stage of life. Manu's is the best known.Western link Close to codes of law and ethics that set social roles. The difference: they tie duty to birth group and life stage, and present it as part of a cosmic order.Full entry in the glossary) barred Shudras from learning the Vedas and punished them for even overhearing Vedic chanting (Rao and Paranjpe, 2016, 2.7). The phrase itself also needs care: pamara can mean "a low man" or "a fool", so write "the learned and ordinary people" instead.
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Answer: D. The reins are the mind (manasmanasमनस्say: muh-nuhsLiterally: mind; from man-, to thinkManas is the everyday mind. It receives what the senses bring, links it together, and wavers between options. It is a tool of the self, not the self.Western link Close to 'mind' as a processor of sensory input, or to attention and working memory. The key difference: manas is not conscious by itself; the self gives it awareness.Full entry in the glossary). They link the driver to the horses, so that a decision can reach the senses. Option B is the usual mix-up: the intellect (buddhibuddhiबुद्धिsay: bud-dhiLiterally: awakening, understanding; from budh-, to wake, to knowBuddhi is the intellect: the part of the mind that decides, judges and understands. In Sankhya it is the first and finest product of nature.Western link Close to 'intellect' or to the executive functions of decision and judgement. The key difference: in Sankhya, buddhi is material and only seems conscious because it reflects purusha.Full entry in the glossary) is the driver, who decides where to go and holds the reins. The horses are the senses, and the master who rides in the chariot is the self.
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Answer: A. Bharata's NatyashastraNatyashastraनाट्यशास्त्रNāṭyaśāstrasay: naat-yuh-shaas-truhLiterally: treatise on dramaThe Natyashastra is an ancient book on drama, dance and music, credited to Bharata. It contains an early theory of emotion called rasa.Western link Close to theories of basic emotions and of audience response in drama. The key difference: rasa is a shared, aesthetic emotion that is enjoyed, not a private reaction.Full entry in the glossary names eight lasting emotions (bhavasbhavaभावbhāvasay: bhaa-vuhLiterally: becoming, state of being; feelingAn emotion or feeling. Bharata named eight lasting emotions (sthayi bhava), such as love, sorrow and fear, and thirty-three passing ones.Western link Close to 'emotion' in psychology, and Bharata's eight lasting emotions resemble modern lists of basic emotions. The difference: Bharata studied them mainly to show them on stage.Full entry in the glossary), and each has its own rasarasaरसsay: ruh-suhLiterally: juice, essence, tasteThe emotional flavour that an audience enjoys in a play, poem or dance. In Bharata's theory each of eight basic emotions has its own rasa.Western link Close to theories of aesthetic emotion, and to the question of why tragedy pleases. The key difference: rasa is a shared, impersonal emotion that is savoured, not the private feeling itself.Full entry in the glossary: the emotion as the audience savours it, shared and held at a little distance. That is why sorrow, which hurts in life, can be enjoyed as pathos in the theatre. Option D is tempting, but it describes the lasting emotions themselves, which Bharata treats as shared with animals. Passing emotions and bodily signs are other parts of his theory.
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Answer: C. In Western psychology the mind is where awareness happens. In Sankhya, Yoga and VedantaVedantaवेदान्तVedāntasay: vay-daan-tuhLiterally: end of the VedaVedanta is the family of schools based on the Upanishads. They ask how the self (atman) relates to ultimate reality (Brahman).Western link Sometimes compared with idealist philosophy, which holds that mind or spirit is basic. The key difference: Vedanta claims this can be known by direct experience, not only by argument.Full entry in the glossary the inner instrument, which includes manasmanasमनस्say: muh-nuhsLiterally: mind; from man-, to thinkManas is the everyday mind. It receives what the senses bring, links it together, and wavers between options. It is a tool of the self, not the self.Western link Close to 'mind' as a processor of sensory input, or to attention and working memory. The key difference: manas is not conscious by itself; the self gives it awareness.Full entry in the glossary, only seems aware, because a separate consciousness lights it up. Calling manas "the mind" hides this difference. Option A mixes manas up with the self (atmanatmanआत्मन्ātmansay: aat-muhnLiterally: self; in early use also 'breath'Atman means the self: the deepest 'I' behind body and mind. In Vedanta it is pure consciousness and is one with Brahman.Western link Close to 'self' or 'soul'. The key difference: Western psychology studies the self as a set of thoughts and traits; atman is the conscious witness of them.Full entry in the glossary), which these schools place outside the mind altogether.
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Answer: D. Ahamkaraahamkaraअहंकारahaṃkārasay: uh-huhng-kaa-ruhLiterally: I-maker (aham, I + kāra, maker)Ahamkara is the 'I-maker': the function that makes us feel 'I am this body and mind, and these things are mine'. In daily Hindi it means pride.Western link Often translated 'ego'. Freud's ego manages between drives and reality; ahamkara is the sense of 'I' and 'mine' that wrongly identifies with body and mind.Full entry in the glossary takes what manasmanasमनस्say: muh-nuhsLiterally: mind; from man-, to thinkManas is the everyday mind. It receives what the senses bring, links it together, and wavers between options. It is a tool of the self, not the self.Western link Close to 'mind' as a processor of sensory input, or to attention and working memory. The key difference: manas is not conscious by itself; the self gives it awareness.Full entry in the glossary has sorted and relates it to "me": "I am bad at this." Option B is tempting because she also makes a decision, but her later judgement to attempt the question is the work of buddhibuddhiबुद्धिsay: bud-dhiLiterally: awakening, understanding; from budh-, to wake, to knowBuddhi is the intellect: the part of the mind that decides, judges and understands. In Sankhya it is the first and finest product of nature.Western link Close to 'intellect' or to the executive functions of decision and judgement. The key difference: in Sankhya, buddhi is material and only seems conscious because it reflects purusha.Full entry in the glossary. Option C is tempting because she remembers failing, but remembering is not the step that makes the question about "me". Do not be misled by the everyday Hindi meaning of ahamkara, which is pride. Here it means the basic sense of being a separate self.
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Answer: A. Sinha's point is about aims. Knowledge was sought mainly for mokshamokshaमोक्षmokṣasay: mok-shuhLiterally: release, freedom; from muc-, to freeMoksha means liberation: final freedom from the cycle of rebirth and from suffering. It is the highest of the four aims of life.Western link Close to 'salvation' in religion, or to 'self-transcendence' in transpersonal psychology. The difference: moksha is freedom through knowledge or insight, not a reward from outside.Full entry in the glossary, freedom from suffering, so ideas about the mind served a practical goal. In Europe, he argues, psychology became a separate science because it wanted to explain and predict for its own sake. Option B is wrong: the Vedas already have about 36 words for mental operations, and the tradition had precise names for the parts of the mind. What it lacked was a name for the whole field.
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Answer: B. The Mundaka places even the four Vedas in apara vidyaapara vidyaअपरा विद्याaparā vidyāsay: uh-puh-raa vid-yaaLiterally: lower knowledgeApara vidya is 'lower knowledge': knowledge of the world gained through the senses, reasoning and study, including the sciences and even the Vedas.Western link Close to empirical and rational knowledge, the kind science works with. The difference: Indian thought sees it as true but limited, not as the only kind of knowledge.Full entry in the glossary, lower knowledge, with the six sciences that support them. Higher knowledge, para vidyapara vidyaपरा विद्याparā vidyāsay: puh-raa vid-yaaLiterally: higher knowledgePara vidya is 'higher knowledge': direct knowledge of ultimate reality. It is gained in deep states of consciousness, not through the senses or reasoning.Western link Close to mystical or transcendent knowledge in the psychology of religion. Mainstream psychology does not accept it as a scientific method; Indian psychologists argue that it can be trained and checked.Full entry in the glossary, is direct knowledge of the self that does not die. Option A is the natural guess, which is why the guide calls this ranking radical. Almost everything modern psychology studies would also count as lower knowledge.
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Answer: A. The guide names two opposite mistakes. One is the colonial view that India had "no psychology, only religion", which is option C. The other is the poster's claim, which Rao and Paranjpe (2016) call "sanctimonious chest beating". The honest position is that India had a great deal of psychological thinking, but no separate discipline and no modern methods: no experiments, no data from many people and no tests of rival theories. Option B states a true fact, but a list of mental elements is not modern psychology. Even the AbhidhammaAbhidhammaअभिधम्मsay: uh-bhi-dhuhm-muhLiterally: higher teaching; (teaching) about the dhammaThe Abhidhamma is the part of Buddhist scripture that analyses the mind in detail. It lists the mental states and factors that make up experience.Western link Close to a classification of mental states in cognitive psychology. The key difference: it is built from trained introspection in meditation and aims at ethical change and freedom from suffering.Full entry in the glossary, the closest thing to a separate study of the mind, served liberation.
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Answer: D. In Buddhist philosophy, mano-vijnana is "mind-consciousness". It knows thoughts as the eye knows colours. So the modern name for the Western science reuses an old Buddhist term with a different meaning. Option A describes adhyatma vidyaadhyatma vidyaअध्यात्मविद्याadhyātmavidyāsay: uhdh-yaat-muh vid-yaaLiterally: knowledge concerning the self (adhi + ātman)Adhyatma vidya is the knowledge or science of the inner self. Indian tradition treats it as the most basic of all sciences.Western link Close to a 'spiritual psychology' or a science of consciousness. The difference: mainstream psychology starts from behaviour and the brain; adhyatma vidya starts from the knower.Full entry in the glossary, the phrase from the Gita (10.32), which is a different word with a different aim. The research for the guide could not find who first used manovijnanamanovijnanaमनोविज्ञानmanovijñānasay: muh-no-vig-yaa-nuhLiterally: knowledge (or consciousness) of the mind (manas + vijñāna)Manovijnana is the modern word for psychology in Hindi and many Indian languages. In old Buddhist texts it means 'mind-consciousness', a kind of awareness.Western link Closest Western term: 'psychology'. The word joins 'mind' with 'vijnana', which can mean both 'science' and 'consciousness'.Full entry in the glossary for psychology.
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Answer: A. Charaka asks why people fall ill when they know how to stay well. His answer is prajnaparadhaprajnaparadhaप्रज्ञापराधprajñāparādhasay: pruhg-yaa-puh-raa-dhuhLiterally: an offence (or failure) of the intellectIn Ayurveda, a failure of judgement: knowing better but acting against it. Charaka treats it as a root cause of illness.Western link Close to ideas in health psychology about poor self-regulation and the gap between knowing and doing. The difference: Charaka treats it as a moral and cognitive failure together.Full entry in the glossary: the intellect fails to tell good from harmful, self-restraint fails to hold back, and memory fails to recall what one has learned. Option C is tempting, but she already has the information. The gap between knowing and doing is exactly Charaka's point, and his cure includes good conduct and a steady mind, not only medicine.
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Answer: C. Buddhibuddhiबुद्धिsay: bud-dhiLiterally: awakening, understanding; from budh-, to wake, to knowBuddhi is the intellect: the part of the mind that decides, judges and understands. In Sankhya it is the first and finest product of nature.Western link Close to 'intellect' or to the executive functions of decision and judgement. The key difference: in Sankhya, buddhi is material and only seems conscious because it reflects purusha.Full entry in the glossary is the step of discrimination or decision, and its work is adhyavasayaadhyavasayaअध्यवसायadhyavasāyasay: uh-dhyuh-vuh-saa-yuhLiterally: ascertainment; settled determinationAdhyavasaya is the work of buddhi: settling what something is and deciding what to do about it. It is the last of the three steps of the inner instrument.Western link Close to judgement and decision-making in cognitive psychology. The difference: buddhi is a kind of subtle matter and is not conscious by itself; it only reflects consciousness.Full entry in the glossary: in Raghavan Iyer's translation of the Sankhya Karika (verse 23), buddhi "is for ascertainment". Sankalpasankalpaसङ्कल्पsaṅkalpasay: suhn-kuhl-puhLiterally: putting together; conception; resolveSankalpa, in the theory of mind, is the work of manas: putting what the senses bring together into a definite idea. In everyday use it also means a firm resolve.Western link Close to integration and differentiation in perception and thinking. The difference: manas does this work without being conscious itself.Full entry in the glossary is the work of manas, the step of coordination, and abhimanaabhimanaअभिमानabhimānasay: uh-bhi-maa-nuhLiterally: self-assertion; the thought "this is mine"; prideAbhimana is the work of ahamkara: claiming experience as "I" and "mine". In everyday Hindi, abhiman also means pride.Western link Close to self-reference and ego-involvement. The difference: Indian schools treat this claiming as a root of attachment and suffering, to be loosened, not strengthened.Full entry in the glossary is the work of ahamkara, the step of appropriation. Vikalpa is tempting because it involves telling things apart, but Advaita pairs it with sankalpa as the work of manas.
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Answer: D. 1916 is the year of the first psychology department, headed by N. N. Sengupta, and Dalal and Rao date the start there. 1905 is the year of Seal's syllabus and demonstration laboratory, inside philosophy. 1915 is the year Sengupta came back from Harvard, which is why Indian psychologists held a centenary in 2015. The Indian Psychological Association and the Mysore department came later, in 1924. In an exam, give all three dates and say what each refers to.
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Answer: C. Dalal gives two reasons. The colonial rulers saw no practical use for psychology, unlike sociology and anthropology. And the philosophy teachers who moved into the new psychology departments cut themselves off from philosophy, because they wanted to look scientific. Dalal calls the result living in "two different worlds without any significant overlap". The other three options are not in the sources. Keep the phrases apart too: "two worlds" is Dalal's, "double life" is the Foundations editors', and "a split in the personality" is Salagame's.
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Answer: C. The study is chosen because a national problem needs solving. That is problem-oriented research, Sinha's phase of the 1960s. Option B is tempting because the study comes after 1947, but that phase mostly repeated Western topics on Indian samples. Option D goes further: it builds concepts and measures from Indian life. Remember that the phases overlap.
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Answer: C. The study starts from local concepts and language, so it is indigenizationindigenizationIndigenization is the process of making a discipline fit a local culture, either by building it from local ideas or by adapting imported theories and methods.Indian link no classical term. It is part of modern efforts to renew Indian psychology.Full entry in the glossary from within. Durganand Sinha calls this internal indigenization, and J. B. P. Sinha calls it endogenous. Option B mixes the pairs: "indigenization of the exogenous" is Durganand Sinha's name for adapting an imported theory or test. A memory aid: "endo" means inside and "exo" means outside.
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Answer: A. Listing likenesses without combining them into anything new is cultural parallelism. Rao and Paranjpe (2016) say that finding the frustration-aggression idea in the Gita helps Indian psychology no more than ancient ideas about atoms help modern physics. Option C is tempting, but revivalismrevivalismPraising old ideas because they are old, and rejecting modern science. Durganand Sinha used the word for an uncritical return to ancient Indian texts.Compare Compare: separation in John Berry's model of acculturation, where a group keeps its own culture and rejects the other. Sinha applied Berry's model to systems of knowledge rather than to people.Full entry in the glossary means praising ideas because they are old, and this thesis makes no such claim. Option B means adding a Sanskrit word or a verse to a study that is otherwise entirely Western.
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Answer: A. The manifestoPondicherry ManifestoA statement issued by 160 delegates at a conference in Pondicherry in 2002. It called on Indian universities to teach and research Indian psychology, and to write textbooks for it.Full entry in the glossary came from a conference of 160 delegates in Pondicherry in 2002. Its eight recommendations include courses at several levels, priority for research, textbooks and doctoral fellowships. Option B is a double trap. The Handbook of Indian Psychology wrongly dates the manifesto to 2003, and the plan for a handbook, a textbook and a sourcebook came from a later meeting in Visakhapatnam in 2003. Use 2002.
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Answer: C. If all knowledge is rooted in a community's worldview, Western psychology is the psychology of one region, which happens to be the most powerful one. Option A is tempting, but indigenizationindigenizationIndigenization is the process of making a discipline fit a local culture, either by building it from local ideas or by adapting imported theories and methods.Indian link no classical term. It is part of modern efforts to renew Indian psychology.Full entry in the glossary is not the same as rejecting Western psychology. For Sinha it was a way to reach a psychology that is true for all people, by building it from many cultures. Option B is the "culture-free" assumption of the early laboratory, psychoanalytic and testing work, which this idea questions.
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Answer: B. If Indian psychology is one indigenous psychologyindigenous psychologyLiterally: Latin indigena, born in a placeIndigenous psychology is psychology that grows from a culture's own ideas, problems and ways of knowing, rather than being imported from elsewhere.Indian link Indian psychology is often called an indigenous psychology, but this is debated. Rao and Paranjpe say Indian psychology carries its own theory, while indigenous psychology is an approach that is neutral about theory.Full entry in the glossary, its findings are claims about Indians, to be compared with other cultures. If it is a school, as Rao and Paranjpe argue, it claims to describe all human beings and must be tested as such. Option A reverses the two cases. Option D is wrong because the guide sets out three different positions in this debate.
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Answer: D. The guidelines say that every student "should be encouraged" to take Indian Knowledge SystemsIndian Knowledge SystemsThe name Indian education policy uses, since 2020, for knowledge from Indian traditions, such as mathematics, medicine, philosophy and yoga, to be taught and researched in universities.Full entry in the glossary courses worth at least five per cent of their credits. Option A misreads a second rule: at least half of those IKS credits should relate to the student's main subject. The guidelines also ask that such courses be "based on authentic sources".
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Answer: C. The editors call this research "etic, rather than emicemic and eticsay: ee-mik, e-tikLiterally: from the linguistics terms 'phonemic' and 'phonetic'An emic approach studies a culture from the inside, using its own concepts. An etic approach studies it from the outside, using concepts meant to fit all cultures.Indian link studying a darshana on its own terms (emic) versus comparing it with Western psychology (etic).Full entry in the glossary": it is done from an outsider's point of view. That is the second argument. An emic approach would study the practices from the inside, with the concepts of the traditions they come from. The other options are real arguments too, but they are about the discipline's turn to culture, the poor fit of Western theories, and the meeting of cultures.
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Answer: A. In 1969 SinhaDurganand SinhaIndian psychologist (1922 to 1998) at Allahabad. He led the call to 'indigenize' psychology in India, so that it fits Indian life and problems.Full entry in the glossary compared 300 students, 150 young teachers and 150 older teachers in Allahabad. The young chose their role models from the present day and "very rarely" from "the great personalities of the past", and they suspended judgement on moral questions more often. Sinha (1978) explained both findings as a loss of continuity with the past: "Old values have tumbled and the new are still in a state of flux." So a study that repeats the first finding should also find the second. Option B is tempting, but Sinha found less moral certainty among the young, not more.
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Answer: C. The sixth argument, that psychology's goals need an alternative approach, is the one that argues most directly for a separate school. Rao and Paranjpe offer Indian psychology as "a viable alternative view of human nature", and Dalal says that "we need both the paradigms". The other options are the first, fifth and second arguments. They show that Western psychology fits Indian life badly, which mainly supports indigenizationindigenizationIndigenization is the process of making a discipline fit a local culture, either by building it from local ideas or by adapting imported theories and methods.Indian link no classical term. It is part of modern efforts to renew Indian psychology.Full entry in the glossary of any kind, including the adapting of Western tests. Durganand Sinha accepted most of these arguments, but he wanted one universal psychology, not a separate Indian school.
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Answer: A. The assumption is about what the mind really is. That is a question about what is real, so it belongs to metaphysicsmetaphysicsLiterally: Greek meta ta physika, 'after the Physics' (the books placed after Aristotle's Physics)Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that asks the most basic questions about reality, such as what exists, what causes what, and what a self is.Indian link darshana, a school's full view of reality.Full entry in the glossary. Option B is tempting because behaviourism also made an epistemological choice: that only observable behaviour is fit for science. That choice is about how we know. The guide's point is that every psychology rests on choices of both kinds, even when it never states them.
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Answer: B. If two trained observers describe their inner experience differently, there is no public way to decide who is right. WatsonJohn B. WatsonAmerican psychologist (1878 to 1958) who launched behaviourism in 1913. He said psychology should study only behaviour that can be observed, not consciousness.Full entry in the glossary and the behaviourists wanted data that anyone could see and count. Option C is wrong: WundtWilhelm Wundtsay: vil-helm voontGerman scientist (1832 to 1920) who opened a laboratory for psychology at Leipzig in 1879. That date is often used as the start of psychology as a separate science.Full entry in the glossary's own laboratory used controlled self-observation. After Watson, much of American psychology avoided consciousness for about forty years.
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Answer: C. Sinha wrote that Indian philosophy "did not primarily take its rise in wonder or curiosity as it seems to have done in the West". It began "under the pressure of a practical need": to understand suffering (dukkhadukkhaदुक्खsay: duk-khuhLiterally: uneasy, hard to bear (Sanskrit duḥkha: 'bad space'; opposite of sukha)Dukkha means suffering or unsatisfactoriness. In Buddhism, the first noble truth is that life as usually lived is marked by dukkha.Western link Close to 'suffering', 'distress' or 'dissatisfaction' in psychology. The difference: dukkha includes a quiet unease even in pleasant states, because they do not last.Full entry in the glossary) and end it. Option A is what Sinha says of the West. He summed up the practical spirit with a Jaina saying: "Do not live to know, but know to live."
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Answer: C. Sadhanasadhanaसाधनाsādhanāsay: saa-dhuh-naaLiterally: means of accomplishing; from sādh-, to accomplishSadhana means steady spiritual practice: the daily discipline, such as meditation, prayer or study, that a person follows to grow toward a spiritual goal.Western link Close to 'deliberate practice', or to a structured training programme for the mind. The difference: its aim is spiritual change, not a measurable skill.Full entry in the glossary is steady practice aimed at changing the person. Girishwar Misra (2014) writes that knowledge in this tradition "changes the knower" more than it changes the thing being known. Option A fits the first student, who learns about anger as a chemistry student learns about a substance, without being changed by it. The tradition ranks the second kind of knowledge higher.
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Answer: A. Rao and Paranjpe want Indian psychology to observe, test and apply its ideas, as a discipline does. But they keep its worldview, especially the views of Advaita VedantaAdvaita Vedantaअद्वैत वेदान्तAdvaita Vedāntasay: uhd-vai-tuh vay-daan-tuhLiterally: not-two; non-dualAdvaita Vedanta teaches that the true self (atman) and ultimate reality (Brahman) are one. The feeling of being a separate person comes from ignorance.Western link Often called monism. Advaita writers prefer 'non-dualism': reality is not two, but it is not described as one countable thing either.Full entry in the glossary and Sankhya-Yoga about consciousness. Option B is tempting, but the guide says both sentences are meant seriously. An exam answer that explains the tension is stronger than one that quotes only one side.
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Answer: B. Some Indian schools have no God at all, and meditation and the other yogas are open to atheists. Paranjpe (2014) makes this point about SankhyaSankhyaसांख्यSāṃkhyasay: saang-khyuhLiterally: enumeration, countingSankhya explains everything with two realities: pure consciousness (purusha) and nature (prakriti). In Sankhya, the mind belongs to nature, not to consciousness.Western link Close to mind-body dualism, as in Descartes. The key difference: Sankhya puts the mind on the material side; only pure consciousness is separate.Full entry in the glossary. The other three options are points on the opposite side: they suggest that religion is still present. The guide's conclusion is that Indian psychology draws on religious traditions without being the same as any one religion.
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Answer: C. This is position C in the guide: the deepest truths can be known only by a researcher whose consciousness has been transformed. Cornelissen argues that inner reports can be checked only by people with "inner instruments of knowledge that are similar or better in quality". Kundan Singh says that "the researcher and the researched become one". Option B is position B, which turns big claims into statements that ordinary observation could test. Positivism is the opposite view: only observation and measurement count.
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Answer: B. Satsat and satyamसत्, सत्यम्sat, satyamsay: suht, suht-yuhmLiterally: sat: being, what truly is; satyam: truthRao and Paranjpe use sat for an absolute truth that can never be shown false, and satyam for what has been found true so far and stays open to revision.Western link Like the difference between a metaphysical certainty and a scientific finding that holds only until it is refuted, as in Popper's idea of falsification.Full entry in the glossary is "an absolute truth that can never be falsified". A claim that the true self is pure consciousness is of this kind, because no study can overturn it. The other three claims are satyam: true so far, if the evidence supports them, and open to revision by a better study. When an author slides from "meditation improves attention" to "meditation reveals the self", the step is from satyam to sat.
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Answer: A. Rao and Paranjpe say that refined introspection aimed at "transforming experience into observation", so that reports could be compared. In the Indian tradition the goal was to realise the truth of an experience in one's own being, not to stand back and describe it. Option B is wrong because Indian schools trained inner observation for centuries. Option C reverses the picture, and option D invents a meaning of realization that the authors do not use.
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Answer: A. Sinha wrote that in biological and physiological areas, "universality of principles and theories is seldom questioned". In social, organisational, personality, clinical and developmental psychology he saw indigenizationindigenizationIndigenization is the process of making a discipline fit a local culture, either by building it from local ideas or by adapting imported theories and methods.Indian link no classical term. It is part of modern efforts to renew Indian psychology.Full entry in the glossary "not only as desirable but also inevitable". Higher perception and thinking fall in between. The guide calls this the clearest statement in the sources about how the three perspectives relate.
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Answer: C. Rao (2008) says that neurophysiological studies "are not considered irrelevant to Indian psychology, but are regarded as insufficient". In his view the mind is material but subtle, so the body and brain can be studied. Consciousness is like the light that a mirror shows: the mirror does not make it. Option A is the tempting misreading, and Rao rejects it directly.
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Answer: A. The gunasgunaगुणguṇasay: gu-nuhLiterally: strand, thread; qualityThe gunas are the three qualities that make up nature and mind: sattva (clarity), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia). Their mix shapes personality.Western link Close to trait or temperament models of personality, such as the Big Five. The difference: the gunas also describe matter, and their balance can change with practice.Full entry in the glossary differ from traits in three ways. They are ranked, because sattvasattvaसत्त्वsay: suht-tvuhLiterally: being-ness; from sat, beingSattva is the guna of clarity, lightness and calm. A sattvic mind is clear, peaceful and ready for knowledge.Western link Close to emotional stability and openness in trait models, or to a calm, focused state. Unlike a trait, sattva is also a quality of foods and actions.Full entry in the glossary is valued above tamastamasतमस्say: tuh-muhsLiterally: darknessTamas is the guna of heaviness, dullness and inertia. It brings sleep, confusion and resistance to change.Western link Close to low arousal, inertia, or the lethargy seen in depression. The difference: tamas is also a quality of matter and of food.Full entry in the glossary. They describe the whole of nature, foods and actions included. And a person's mix can change with practice, diet and way of life. Extraversion carries no such ranking and is not expected to change through diet or spiritual practice. Option B is wrong, because both can be measured with questionnaires. The ranking is also why self-report guna scales may measure what people wish they were.
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Answer: D. Ayurveda describes three doshasdoshaदोषdoṣasay: do-shuhLiterally: fault, defectIn Ayurveda, the doshas are three bodily forces: vata, pitta and kapha. Health is their balance; illness comes when they are out of balance.Western link Loosely close to the four humours of ancient Greek medicine, or to temperament types. The difference: doshas are not part of modern physiology, and self-report dosha questionnaires still need validation.Full entry in the glossary: vatavataवातvātasay: vaa-tuhLiterally: wind (vā-, to blow)Vata is the Ayurvedic dosha of movement, linked with air. It governs breathing, circulation and all movement in body and mind.Western link No direct match. Vata types resemble restless, changeable temperaments, but vata is a body-mind process concept, not a psychological diagnosis.Full entry in the glossary, pittapittaपित्तsay: pit-tuhLiterally: bilePitta is the Ayurvedic dosha of heat and change, linked with fire. It governs digestion, body heat and sharpness of mind.Western link No direct match. Pitta types resemble quick, intense temperaments, but pitta is a body-mind process concept, not a trait measure.Full entry in the glossary and kaphakaphaकफsay: kuh-phuhLiterally: phlegmKapha is the Ayurvedic dosha of structure and stability, linked with water and earth. It gives the body strength and the mind steadiness.Western link No direct match. Kapha types resemble calm, steady temperaments, but kapha is a body-mind process concept, not a trait measure.Full entry in the glossary. Each person is born with a particular mix, the person's constitution. A balanced mix means health, and an imbalance means illness of body or mind. So the literal meaning misleads: in balance, the doshas are what keep a person healthy (Rao and Paranjpe, 2016, section 5.11). Option C is wrong because the doshas describe body type and temperament together. The page also warns that the doshas are not part of modern physiology, and that dosha questionnaires still need testing.
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Answer: C. Yoga and Ayurveda describe pranapranaप्राणprāṇasay: praa-nuhLiterally: breath, life (pra + an-, to breathe)Prana is breath and life energy. Yoga and Ayurveda say it moves through the body in five main currents and links body and mind.Western link Close to 'vital energy' in older Western ideas, or to breathing and autonomic regulation in physiology. Modern science has no measure for prana as such.Full entry in the glossary, breath and life energy, as the link between body and mind. When the breath is fast and uneven, the mind is agitated; when it is slow and even, the mind settles. The idea is that body, breath and mind are three levels of one system, and you can enter the system at any level. Option A is the usual Western biological picture, in which the body causes the mind; the guide says that is not the Yoga idea. Option B confuses prana with pure consciousness, which in Sankhya and Yoga does not act at all.
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Answer: C. Desh-kala-patradesh-kala-patraदेश-काल-पात्रdeśa-kāla-pātrasay: day-shuh kaa-luh paa-truhLiterally: place, time and person (literally 'vessel')Place, time and person: the three things Hindu tradition says you must know before you can judge an action as right or wrong.Western link Close to Kurt Lewin's idea that behaviour depends on the person and the situation together. The difference: desh-kala-patra adds time, and it is used to judge whether an act is right, not only to explain it.Full entry in the glossary means place, time and person: you must know all three before you judge an act. Lewin also said that you cannot explain behaviour from the person alone. But his idea is descriptive, while desh-kala-patra is a rule for judging right and wrong, and it adds time. Option A gets the likeness right and the difference wrong.
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Answer: D. In cultural psychologycultural psychologyCultural psychology studies how culture and mind shape each other. It holds that people's thinking and feeling cannot be understood apart from their cultural setting.Indian link the context-sensitive view of dharma, in which right action depends on place, time and person.Full entry in the glossary, culture is part of the psyche, not a variable added on top, as Misra and Gergen (1993) argued. Option A describes cross-cultural psychologycross-cultural psychologyCross-cultural psychology compares people from different cultures to find which psychological patterns are universal and which differ.Indian link no classical term.Full entry in the glossary, which takes a theory or test from one country and gives it to people in others. Option C goes too far: cultural psychology studies a culture in its own terms before comparing it with anything else.
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Answer: A. A derived etic is a general concept built up by comparing several careful emic studies, so that the universal is found rather than assumed. Option B is the opposite: one culture's concept, often a Western test, treated as universal from the start. Option C is tempting because each study begins from the inside, but the final step of comparison makes the concept etic. See emic and eticemic and eticsay: ee-mik, e-tikLiterally: from the linguistics terms 'phonemic' and 'phonetic'An emic approach studies a culture from the inside, using its own concepts. An etic approach studies it from the outside, using concepts meant to fit all cultures.Indian link studying a darshana on its own terms (emic) versus comparing it with Western psychology (etic).Full entry in the glossary.
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Answer: B. Dalal found that patients "consistently attributed their illness to karmakarmaकर्मsay: kuhr-muhLiterally: action, deed; from kṛ-, to doKarma means action, and also the result that every action brings back to the person who did it, in this life or a later one.Western link Close to moral causation, or 'you reap what you sow'. The difference: in most schools karma is an impersonal law that works across lives; theistic schools say God oversees it, but even there it is not a judge's verdict on a single life.Full entry in the glossary and God's will", but found "no consistent linkages" with adjustment. The meaning of the belief shifts with the illness and the social setting. In one heart-attack study, beliefs in karma went with better recovery, while blaming the illness on God went with worse recovery and mood. So neither option A nor option C holds in general.
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Answer: D. Manickam (2008) uses "India-made foreign" for forcing an Indian idea into a Western label, as when yoga becomes "relaxation". Here the relationship between guruguruगुरुsay: gu-ruLiterally: heavy, weighty; hence venerableA guru is a teacher, especially a spiritual teacher who guides a student in knowledge and practice. The guru is deeply respected in Indian tradition.Western link Close to a mentor or a therapist. The difference: the guru teaches by example and personal realisation, and the relationship includes devotion and service.Full entry in the glossary and disciple, which Neki (1973) proposed as a model for Indian psychotherapy, is renamed with a Western label and studied only in Western terms. Option A is the reverse mistake: claiming that a Western idea "was always in our texts". Jasmine in one's own courtyard means ignoring the riches of one's own tradition, and crab in the open jar means pulling down colleagues who try something new.
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Answer: A. A claim is falsifiablefalsifiabilityLiterally: Latin falsus, falseFalsifiability means a claim could, in principle, be shown false by evidence. Karl Popper proposed it as the test that separates science from non-science.Indian link none exactly. Indian debate (vada) tested claims against counter-examples, and Nyaya lists types of faulty reasoning (hetvabhasa).Full entry in the glossary if you can say what evidence would prove it wrong. If students who practised slow breathing for four weeks scored no lower than students who did not, the breathing claim would fail. Whatever happens, a believer can say there was a reason, so option B cannot be shown false. The claims about pure consciousness and the true self also allow no observation that could count against them. PopperKarl PopperAustrian-born philosopher of science who argued that a theory is scientific only if evidence could, in principle, show it to be false.Full entry in the glossary did not call such claims worthless, only not science.
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Answer: D. Most of these writers use "paradigm" for a worldview or a set of deep assumptions. The Foundations editors, for example, try to set out "the basic 'paradigm' of the Indian tradition". KuhnThomas KuhnAmerican historian of science (1922 to 1996). His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) made the word 'paradigm' famous.Full entry in the glossary's strict sense, option A, is narrower: the theories, methods, values and model examples that one scientific community shares. When you write about the "paradigm debate", say which sense you mean.
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Answer: A. Kuhn's model fits a mature science in which almost everyone shares one framework. Psychology has never been like that: behaviourism, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology and humanistic psychology have long existed side by side, so option B reverses the facts. LakatosImre Lakatossay: im-ray lak-uh-tosHungarian-born philosopher of science who worked in London. He described science as competing 'research programmes', each with a protected hard core and a testable outer belt.Full entry in the glossary describes rival research programmesresearch programmeImre Lakatos's term for a line of research with a protected 'hard core' of basic assumptions and an outer 'protective belt' of hypotheses that are tested and changed.Indian link a darshana, a school with fixed core assumptions and many arguments built around them.Full entry in the glossary, each judged by the new findings it produces. Rao and Paranjpe (2016) use this idea: "Indian psychology does offer such programs."
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Answer: D. The protective belt holds specific hypotheses that can be tested and changed. A claim that a named practice, done for a set time, reduces a measured outcome is of this kind: a study could show it false. The hard core holds the assumptions the programme protects, such as the existence of pure consciousness. Option B is tempting because it sounds testable, but it is too general for any one study to refute, and the diagram on the page, following Sedlmeier, places it in the hard core. Sedlmeier calls this shared background the "metatheory", and says that it is not open to falsification.
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Answer: A. Second-person methods sit between first-person and third-person methods. A trained interviewer, or in the Indian tradition a guruguruगुरुsay: gu-ruLiterally: heavy, weighty; hence venerableA guru is a teacher, especially a spiritual teacher who guides a student in knowledge and practice. The guru is deeply respected in Indian tradition.Western link Close to a mentor or a therapist. The difference: the guru teaches by example and personal realisation, and the relationship includes devotion and service.Full entry in the glossary, helps a person describe and check their reports. Option B is a first-person methodfirst-person methodA first-person method studies experience from the inside, through a person's own observation and report of what they experience.Indian link nididhyasana, meditative realisation, which Rao treats as the first-person stage of knowing; and yogic perception (yogi pratyaksha).Full entry in the glossary, and option C is a third-person method. Rao (2008) links the three to the classical stages of learning: hearing, reflecting and meditative realisation.
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Answer: D. CornelissenMatthijs CornelissenDutch-born doctor and psychologist living in India since 1976. He founded the Indian Psychology Institute in Pondicherry and co-edited Foundations of Indian Psychology.Full entry in the glossary argues that inner states need "reliable subjectivity". Yoga trains the observer, as mathematics and instruments train the physicist, and reports are checked by "equally or better qualified observers". Option A misses his point, because he accepts that checking is needed. Critics still ask how anyone outside the trained group could confirm such reports.
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Answer: D. The CharvakaCharvakaचार्वाकCārvākasay: chaar-vaa-kuhLiterally: uncertain (one guess is 'sweet-tongued', caru + vac); the other name, Lokayata, means 'directed at the world' (loka + ayata)Charvaka, also called Lokayata, is India's materialist school. It held that only matter is real and that perception is the only sure way of knowing.Western link Close to materialism and empiricism in Western philosophy. Like modern physicalism, it explains the mind as a product of the body.Full entry in the glossary school accepted perception (pratyakshapratyakshaप्रत्यक्षpratyakṣasay: pruh-tyuhk-shuhLiterally: before the eyes (prati + akṣa)Pratyaksha is perception: knowledge that comes directly through the senses. All Indian schools accept it as a valid means of knowledge.Western link Close to 'perception' in psychology; the two stages resemble the step from sensation to recognition. Yogic perception has no accepted match in Western science.Full entry in the glossary) alone. Buddhists accepted perception and inference (anumanaanumanaअनुमानanumānasay: uh-nu-maa-nuhLiterally: measuring after (anu + māna)Anumana is inference: knowing something you cannot see from a sign you can see. The classic example: there is smoke on the hill, so there is fire.Western link Close to inference in logic, mixing deductive and inductive reasoning. The difference: the Indian form always includes a real example from experience.Full entry in the glossary). NyayaNyayaन्यायNyāyasay: nyaa-yuhLiterally: rule, method, standard; 'that into which a thing goes back' (ni + i-, to go)Nyaya is the Indian school of logic and of the theory of knowledge. It studies how we can know things correctly and how to argue well.Western link Close to logic and epistemology in Western philosophy. The differences: Nyaya also aims at liberation, and its inference always includes an example from experience.Full entry in the glossary, as the reality page notes, accepted four: perception, inference, comparison and testimony (shabdashabdaशब्दśabdasay: shuhb-duhLiterally: sound, wordShabda is knowledge from words: the testimony of a reliable person or of scripture. It is how we learn most things we cannot check ourselves.Western link Close to 'testimony' in modern epistemology, which studies how we trust others' reports. Science accepts expert testimony, but not scripture, as evidence.Full entry in the glossary). Option B swaps the Charvaka and Buddhist positions. Testimony is where the debate with mainstream science gets sharp, because science accepts it only when it can in principle be checked by observation.
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Answer: B. The review found moderate evidence for anxiety, depression and pain. It found no evidence that meditation works better than other active treatments, such as exercise or medicines, which rules out option D. The larger psychology review by Sedlmeier and colleagues (2012) found a medium-sized average effect, largest on emotional and relationship measures.
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Answer: B. The claim says that an Indian concept, the doshasdoshaदोषdoṣasay: do-shuhLiterally: fault, defectIn Ayurveda, the doshas are three bodily forces: vata, pitta and kapha. Health is their balance; illness comes when they are out of balance.Western link Loosely close to the four humours of ancient Greek medicine, or to temperament types. The difference: doshas are not part of modern physiology, and self-report dosha questionnaires still need validation.Full entry in the glossary, can be measured, so it sits at the level of concepts. At that level, the guide says, such ideas can be measured but the quality of the scales varies, and the perspectives page warns that dosha questionnaires still need testing to show that they measure what they claim. A practice claim says that something people do, such as breath practice, has an effect. A metaphysical claim, such as "pure consciousness exists apart from the brain", is not tested by current research and is perhaps not testable. Parapsychology is not one of the three levels.
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Answer: B. The three steps of shravana, manana and nididhyasanashravana, manana, nididhyasanaश्रवण, मनन, निदिध्यासनśravaṇa, manana, nididhyāsanasay: shruh-vuh-nuh, muh-nuh-nuh, ni-di-dhyaa-suh-nuhLiterally: hearing, reflecting, deep meditationThree stages of learning in the Upanishads and Vedanta: hearing the teaching, thinking it through, and meditating on it until it is realised.Western link Like moving from a lecture, to discussion and critical thinking, to practice that changes you. The difference: the last stage is said to change the learner's being, not only their knowledge.Full entry in the glossary are hearing, reflecting and realising. Mananamananaमननsay: muh-nuh-nuhLiterally: thinking over, reflection; from man-, to thinkThe second step of knowing in Vedanta: thinking a teaching through, testing it with reason until doubts are removed.Western link Close to critical thinking and reflection. The difference: the aim is to remove doubt so that deep meditation can follow, not to reach a final answer by reasoning alone.Full entry in the glossary is the middle step, where reasoning (tarkatarkaतर्कsay: tuhr-kuhLiterally: reasoning, suppositionTarka means reasoning. In Indian logic it tests a supposition by following it until it meets a contradiction, and it helps inference by clearing doubt.Western link Close to reductio ad absurdum and to testing a hypothesis by its consequences. The difference: tarka proves nothing alone; it serves an inference or a teaching already received.Full entry in the glossary) answers every doubt: Paranjpe and Rao (2008, p. 276) write that "Not a single doubt or objection should remain unexamined." Option A describes shravana and option C describes nididhyasana. Option D sounds like an old method of study, but it is not one of the three steps.
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Answer: D. Nyaya-Vaisheshika, the Buddhist logicians Dinnaga and Dharmakirti, and Jainism all describe some form of yogi pratyakshayogi pratyakshaयोगिप्रत्यक्षyogipratyakṣasay: yo-gi pruh-tyuhk-shuhLiterally: perception of a yogiYogi pratyaksha is the direct perception that several Indian schools say advanced meditators gain: knowing things that the ordinary senses cannot reach.Western link Nearest to the trained perception of experts, and to William James's 'noetic quality' of mystical states, which feel like knowledge. The difference: yogi pratyaksha claims to reach objects outside the senses altogether.Full entry in the glossary, so option B is wrong. Option C is the nearest Western idea, but yogi pratyaksha claims more: it says it reaches objects outside the senses altogether. Modern psychology has not established this, so option A is wrong. It belongs with the claims about psiparapsychologyLiterally: Greek para, beside or beyondParapsychology studies claimed abilities that seem to go beyond the known senses and body, such as extrasensory perception (ESP). These claimed effects are called 'psi'.Indian link siddhi, the special powers described in the Yoga Sutras.Full entry in the glossary that the guide asks you to report as claims.
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Answer: A. Rao and Paranjpe (2016, sec. 1.3.4) say that realisation "engenders instant conviction of certainty" and that the guru's check gives "in-group inter-subject validity". That is a strength, because the person's experience counts as evidence. It is also a problem, because conviction is not proof and an in-group check is not open to everyone. Option B throws away first-person evidence, option C treats conviction as proof, and option D is false: member checking in qualitative research does take participants' accounts seriously.
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Answer: C. The channel's honesty is proved by the channel's own word, so the claim rests on itself. Misra (2014, p. 122) lists self-dependence first among the faults that reasoning must check. Option B is close, but mutual dependence needs two different claims that support each other. There is no endless chain of reasons here, so option A does not fit, and option D names a different rule of inquiry.
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Answer: D. Koltko-Rivera defined a worldviewworldviewA worldview is a person's or a culture's basic picture of reality: what exists, what matters, and how life should be lived.Indian link darshana ('view'), and drishti (a view or outlook).Full entry in the glossary as "a set of assumptions about physical and social reality that may have powerful effects on cognition and behavior". Assumptions are taken for granted, not tested, which rules out option A. The effects mean that a worldview shapes what people notice, think, feel and do. Option C is Kuhn's idea of a paradigm, which is narrower. People learn a worldview from their culture, religion and language, but it is not the same thing as a religion.
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Answer: A. In the Rig Veda, rtartaऋतṛtasay: ri-tuhLiterally: what moves in order; truth, orderRta is the Vedic idea of cosmic order: the law that keeps the seasons, the stars and right human conduct in harmony.Western link Close to 'natural law', or to the Greek idea of the cosmos as an ordered whole. The difference: rta joins physical, moral and ritual order in one idea.Full entry in the glossary means both truth and an unbreakable order of events. The sun rises, the seasons turn, and right human conduct belongs to the same order. That moral side is the difference from laws of nature. Option B reverses the idea: the universe is "a cosmos and not chaos" (Paranjpe, 2011).
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Answer: B. Dharmadharmaधर्मsay: dhuhr-muhLiterally: that which holds or supports; from dhṛ-, to holdDharma is the right way of living: duty, ethics, and the order that holds society and the world together. It depends partly on one's role and stage of life.Western link Close to 'ethics', 'duty' or 'moral order'. The difference: dharma joins personal ethics, social roles and cosmic law, and it depends on context.Full entry in the glossary comes from the root dhr, "to hold, to support". It covers duty, right, justice, virtue and morality, as a way of living rather than a creed. Option A is too narrow: some duties, such as truthfulness and self-control, apply to everyone, and only varnashrama dharma depends on social group and stage of life. In Buddhism the Pali form, Dhamma, usually means the Buddha's teaching, but that is a different use.
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Answer: B. Karmakarmaकर्मsay: kuhr-muhLiterally: action, deed; from kṛ-, to doKarma means action, and also the result that every action brings back to the person who did it, in this life or a later one.Western link Close to moral causation, or 'you reap what you sow'. The difference: in most schools karma is an impersonal law that works across lives; theistic schools say God oversees it, but even there it is not a judge's verdict on a single life.Full entry in the glossary first means action of body, speech and mind, and in Indian usage it "clearly implies free will". The MahabharataMahabharataमहाभारतMahābhāratasay: muh-haa-bhaa-ruh-tuhLiterally: the great (story of the) BharatasThe Mahabharata is a very long Sanskrit epic about a war between two related royal families. The Bhagavad Gita is one part of it.Western link Often compared with Homer's Iliad. It is much longer, and it contains whole books of moral and philosophical teaching.Full entry in the glossary calls effort the field and fortune the seed, and says that in the end effort matters more. Option C is tempting, but karma treats intentions and moral worth as real causes and stretches across lives, while the just-world belief is a bias that psychologists measure.
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Answer: D. In MaslowAbraham MaslowAmerican psychologist (1908 to 1970), a founder of humanistic and later transpersonal psychology. He is known for the hierarchy of needs and 'self-actualisation'.Full entry in the glossary's best-known model, self-actualisation is the top of a ladder of growth. Mokshamokshaमोक्षmokṣasay: mok-shuhLiterally: release, freedom; from muc-, to freeMoksha means liberation: final freedom from the cycle of rebirth and from suffering. It is the highest of the four aims of life.Western link Close to 'salvation' in religion, or to 'self-transcendence' in transpersonal psychology. The difference: moksha is freedom through knowledge or insight, not a reward from outside.Full entry in the glossary is release from striving, not its highest step. Maslow later placed self-transcendence above self-actualisation, which comes closer to moksha, but it is still framed as a further stage of growth. Option C describes arthaarthaअर्थsay: uhr-thuhLiterally: aim, purpose; object, meaning; wealthArtha is the life aim of wealth, work and material security. It is one of the four purusharthas and is a worthy goal when pursued within dharma.Western link Close to economic and security needs, or to work and career in psychology. The difference: artha is a duty and a value, not only a need.Full entry in the glossary, another of the four aims of life.
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Answer: B. Karmic thinking went with beliefs that justify existing inequality. Yet reminders of karma made people more generous, though only towards people whose need was not their own fault. The first finding echoes AmbedkarB. R. Ambedkarsay: uhm-bayd-kuhrIndian jurist, economist and social reformer (1891 to 1956), born into a caste treated as 'untouchable'. He chaired the committee that drafted India's Constitution and attacked caste and its religious justifications.Full entry in the glossary, who listed "the heartless law of karma" among the instruments of torture used against the Untouchables. The guide says a fair account teaches karma's comfort and its political use together.
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Answer: A. Durganand Sinha found that the fatalism claim "has not yet been conclusively supported by empirical studies". Indian studies point to social position instead. Children from disadvantaged castes were more external in their locus of controllocus of controlLiterally: Latin locus, placeLocus of control is how far a person believes that what happens to them depends on their own actions (internal) or on outside forces such as luck or fate (external).Indian link the Mahabharata's discussion of human effort and fortune (daiva), which says that in the end effort matters more.Full entry in the glossary (Das and Panda, 1971), and underprivileged students showed exactly this pattern of credit and blame (Sinha, 1980). Option B names scholars who made the claim, not evidence for it.
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Answer: C. The contrast between the independent self and the interdependent selfinterdependent selfA way of seeing oneself as part of a web of relationships, with family, group and duties at the centre of who one is, rather than a separate set of personal traits.Indian link the self as defined through family, community and dharma, the duties of one's role.Full entry in the glossary comes from Markus and Kitayama (1991). Sinha and Tripathi (1994) found that Indians show both tendencies together. Kiran Kumar (2008) also warns that calling India simply "collectivist" forces a Western category onto a more mixed reality. The other three findings are real, but they answer other questions.
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Answer: D. Durganand Sinha warned: "From ancient texts and scriptures to contemporary attitudes and behaviour of Indians is a big leap fraught with dangers of erroneous over-generalizations." Texts are not behaviour. The guide's advice for research is to measure beliefs, not to assume them from ancient texts. Option C is a real caution, but it is about guna scales, and this researcher uses no scale at all. Pande and Naidu (1992) did measure non-attachment (anasaktianasaktiअनासक्तिanāsaktisay: uh-naa-suhk-tiLiterally: non-attachment (an + āsakti, clinging)Anasakti means non-attachment: acting and enjoying life without clinging to things or to results. Indian psychologists study it as a source of calm and happiness.Western link Close to 'non-attachment' in mindfulness research, and to acceptance in acceptance-based therapies. The difference: it is rooted in duty (dharma) and service, not only in managing emotion.Full entry in the glossary): they built a scale and tested it.
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Answer: B. The test is the Vedas, nothing else. Schools that accept their authority are astikaastikaआस्तिकāstikasay: aas-ti-kuhLiterally: one who says 'it is' (asti)Astika schools are the Indian philosophies that accept the authority of the Vedas. The usual six are Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta.Western link Often translated 'orthodox', but it is not the same as 'theist'. The test is acceptance of the Vedas, not belief in God.Full entry in the glossary, and schools that reject it are nastikanastikaनास्तिकnāstikasay: naas-ti-kuhLiterally: one who says 'it is not' (na asti)Nastika schools are the Indian philosophies that reject the authority of the Vedas: Buddhism, Jainism and Charvaka.Western link Often translated 'heterodox'. It is not the same as 'atheist': Buddhism and Jainism are nastika but are full religious paths.Full entry in the glossary. Option A is the most common confusion: classical Sankhya has no God, and Mimamsa thinkers "did not believe in God", yet both schools are astika. Nastika does not mean atheist or materialist either: Buddhism and Jainism are nastika, but they are not materialist.
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Answer: C. The translation "illusion" misleads. Advaita does not say that tables, people and illnesses are fake. They belong to the everyday level, vyavaharikavyavaharikaव्यावहारिकvyāvahārikasay: vyaa-vuh-haa-ri-kuhLiterally: relating to daily dealings (vyavahāra)Vyavaharika means the everyday or 'transactional' level of reality: the world of people, objects and science, which is real for practical life.Western link Close to Kant's world of appearances (phenomena), or to the reality that science studies. The difference: Advaita claims the higher level can be known directly.Full entry in the glossary, where they are rightly treated as real. Mayamayaमायाmāyāsay: maa-yaaLiterally: measuring or creative power; magic, illusionMaya is the power that makes one reality appear as a world of many separate things. It is often translated 'illusion', which is only part of its meaning.Western link Close to the gap between appearance and reality, as in Plato's cave. The difference: the world is not unreal in daily life; it is only not the final truth.Full entry in the glossary explains how one reality, BrahmanBrahmanब्रह्मन्brahmansay: bruh-hmuhnLiterally: the vast; from bṛh-, to grow, expandBrahman is the ultimate reality in Vedanta: the one source and ground of everything. It is often described as being, consciousness and bliss.Western link Close to 'the Absolute' in Western philosophy, or to God in mystical theology. The difference: in Advaita, Brahman is not separate from the self that seeks it.Full entry in the glossary, appears as many separate things. Only at the ultimate level is Brahman alone real.
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Answer: B. Advaita has three levels. The ultimate level, paramarthikaparamarthikaपारमार्थिकpāramārthikasay: paa-ruh-maar-thi-kuhLiterally: relating to the highest truth (parama + artha)Paramarthika means the ultimate level of reality in Advaita Vedanta. At this level only Brahman, pure consciousness, is real.Western link Close to Kant's 'thing in itself' (noumenon). Kant held that it cannot be known; Advaita holds that it can be known by direct experience.Full entry in the glossary, is BrahmanBrahmanब्रह्मन्brahmansay: bruh-hmuhnLiterally: the vast; from bṛh-, to grow, expandBrahman is the ultimate reality in Vedanta: the one source and ground of everything. It is often described as being, consciousness and bliss.Western link Close to 'the Absolute' in Western philosophy, or to God in mystical theology. The difference: in Advaita, Brahman is not separate from the self that seeks it.Full entry in the glossary alone. The everyday level, vyavaharikavyavaharikaव्यावहारिकvyāvahārikasay: vyaa-vuh-haa-ri-kuhLiterally: relating to daily dealings (vyavahāra)Vyavaharika means the everyday or 'transactional' level of reality: the world of people, objects and science, which is real for practical life.Western link Close to Kant's world of appearances (phenomena), or to the reality that science studies. The difference: Advaita claims the higher level can be known directly.Full entry in the glossary, is the world of people, objects and exams, rightly treated as real as long as nothing contradicts it. Below both sits pratibhasikapratibhasikaप्रातिभासिकprātibhāsikasay: praa-ti-bhaa-si-kuhLiterally: belonging to mere appearanceIn Advaita Vedanta, pratibhasika is the lowest level of reality: things that only seem real for a while, such as dreams and mirages.Western link Close to illusions and hallucinations in perception research. The difference: Advaita uses them as a model for how all ordinary knowledge can be corrected.Full entry in the glossary, the merely apparent, such as a mirage or a dream: Meghna's dream is cancelled as soon as she wakes. Option C is tempting, but for Advaita the exam is real only at the everyday level; at the ultimate level Brahman alone is real. Mayamayaमायाmāyāsay: maa-yaaLiterally: measuring or creative power; magic, illusionMaya is the power that makes one reality appear as a world of many separate things. It is often translated 'illusion', which is only part of its meaning.Western link Close to the gap between appearance and reality, as in Plato's cave. The difference: the world is not unreal in daily life; it is only not the final truth.Full entry in the glossary explains how one reality appears as many things. It does not make the everyday world fake.
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Answer: B. In Cartesian dualismCartesian dualismsay: kaar-tee-zhuhnLiterally: from Cartesius, the Latin name of DescartesDescartes' view that the mind (which thinks) and the body (which takes up space) are two different substances that act on each other.Indian link Sankhya's two realities, purusha and prakriti. The difference: in Sankhya the mind is part of matter, and the two realities never interact.Full entry in the glossary, the mind stands with consciousness against the body. In SankhyaSankhyaसांख्यSāṃkhyasay: saang-khyuhLiterally: enumeration, countingSankhya explains everything with two realities: pure consciousness (purusha) and nature (prakriti). In Sankhya, the mind belongs to nature, not to consciousness.Western link Close to mind-body dualism, as in Descartes. The key difference: Sankhya puts the mind on the material side; only pure consciousness is separate.Full entry in the glossary, thinking, deciding and feeling are products of nature (prakritiprakritiप्रकृतिprakṛtisay: pruh-kri-tiLiterally: what is made first; original natureIn Sankhya, prakriti is nature: the single source of all matter and all mental activity. It is made of three qualities, the gunas.Western link Close to 'nature' or 'matter-energy'. The key difference: prakriti includes the mind, so thoughts and feelings are natural processes, not consciousness itself.Full entry in the glossary), and only pure consciousness (purushapurushaपुरुषpuruṣasay: pu-ru-shuhLiterally: person, manIn Sankhya and Yoga, purusha is pure consciousness: the silent witness that is aware but does not act. It is completely separate from mind and matter.Western link Close to 'pure consciousness' or the 'witness' in consciousness studies. Unlike Descartes' mind, purusha does not think; thinking belongs to matter.Full entry in the glossary) stands apart. Option D is wrong: the two never interact, which is how Sankhya "avoids the Cartesian pitfall of mind-body interaction". Shankara attacked this very point, asking how two realities that never interact could affect each other.
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Answer: D. For NyayaNyayaन्यायNyāyasay: nyaa-yuhLiterally: rule, method, standard; 'that into which a thing goes back' (ni + i-, to go)Nyaya is the Indian school of logic and of the theory of knowledge. It studies how we can know things correctly and how to argue well.Western link Close to logic and epistemology in Western philosophy. The differences: Nyaya also aims at liberation, and its inference always includes an example from experience.Full entry in the glossary and VaisheshikaVaisheshikaवैशेषिकVaiśeṣikasay: vai-shay-shi-kuhLiterally: concerned with particulars (viśeṣa)Vaisheshika is the school that sorts everything that exists into basic categories. It taught that physical things are made of tiny atoms.Western link Close to Greek atomism and to Aristotle's list of categories. Unlike Greek atomism, it counts selves and minds as separate substances.Full entry in the glossary, the self is many and eternal, but consciousness is not its nature. It arises only when a mind is present to show it. Option A is the view of Advaita, Sankhya-Yoga and Jainism. Option B is the Charvaka view, and option C is early Buddhism.
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Answer: C. The five groups, the skandhasskandhaस्कन्धsay: skuhn-dhuhLiterally: heap, bundle; trunkThe skandhas are the five 'heaps' that make up a person in Buddhism: body, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness.Western link Close to a model of the mind in parts: body, affect, perception, motivation and awareness. The difference: the list is used to show that there is no self beyond the parts.Full entry in the glossary, are material form, feeling, perception, dispositions and consciousness. None of them is a lasting "I". Kalupahana writes that the analysis "was intended to demonstrate the absence of a permanent and eternal self". This is the teaching of anattaanattaअनत्ताanattāsay: uh-nuht-taaLiterally: not-self (Sanskrit an + ātman)Anatta is the Buddhist teaching of 'no-self': there is no lasting, unchanging self behind our experiences. A person is a changing process.Western link Close to David Hume's 'bundle' view of the self, and to modern views of the self as something the brain constructs. The difference: anatta is meant to be seen in meditation, and seeing it frees from suffering.Full entry in the glossary. Option A is Advaita's view, which Buddhism rejects, and option D is the view of Nyaya-Vaisheshika, which keeps a lasting self.
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Answer: B. CharvakaCharvakaचार्वाकCārvākasay: chaar-vaa-kuhLiterally: uncertain (one guess is 'sweet-tongued', caru + vac); the other name, Lokayata, means 'directed at the world' (loka + ayata)Charvaka, also called Lokayata, is India's materialist school. It held that only matter is real and that perception is the only sure way of knowing.Western link Close to materialism and empiricism in Western philosophy. Like modern physicalism, it explains the mind as a product of the body.Full entry in the glossary held that "matter is the only reality, and sense perception is the only valid means of knowledge or proof". That makes it the closest Indian school to Western materialismmaterialismMaterialism, or physicalism, is the view that only matter and physical forces are real. On this view, the mind is a product of the brain.Indian link Charvaka (Lokayata) materialism. Sankhya partly agrees, because it treats the mind as material, but it adds purusha.Full entry in the glossary, but science depends on inference as well as perception. Option C is wrong: Rao and Paranjpe note that materialism was "adopted by only a small minority of thinkers" in India. Treat the usual picture of Charvaka with care, because its own texts are lost.
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Answer: B. Paranjpe and Rao (2008) draw out two claims. Turiyaturiyaतुरीयturīyasay: tu-ree-yuhLiterally: the fourthTuriya is 'the fourth' state of consciousness, beyond waking, dreaming and deep sleep. It is pure awareness, present behind the other three.Western link Close to 'pure consciousness' or 'minimal phenomenal experience' in consciousness research. The difference: turiya is said to be the true self, not a brain state.Full entry in the glossary has no object, and it differs from deep sleep. You can say "I slept well", and deep sleep leaves the self unchanged, while turiya is beyond description and transforms the ego. Option A is tempting because deep sleep also has no objects, but that likeness is not the whole story. In Advaita, turiya is the awareness present in all three ordinary states.
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Answer: A. Bhawuk wrote: "In the pancha kosa model of the self, the social self is neglected." He added that only the first two layers are concrete. Option B is the opposite of the truth: like the biopsychosocial model, the five sheathspancha koshaपञ्चकोशpañcakośasay: puhn-chuh ko-shuhLiterally: five sheathsPancha kosha means the five sheaths of the person: body, breath, mind, understanding and bliss. Each is subtler than the one before.Western link Close to holistic or biopsychosocial models of the person. The difference: it adds a layer of bliss and places the true self beyond all five.Full entry in the glossary refuse to reduce a person to the body. One of the five layers, the one made of understanding, is the intellect.
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Answer: D. The Sankhya Karika says the gunas never work alone: each tries to dominate the others, yet they also depend on each other and cooperate (verse 12), and they "function together ... for a purpose" (verse 13). Verse 16 adds that prakritiprakritiप्रकृतिprakṛtisay: pruh-kri-tiLiterally: what is made first; original natureIn Sankhya, prakriti is nature: the single source of all matter and all mental activity. It is made of three qualities, the gunas.Western link Close to 'nature' or 'matter-energy'. The key difference: prakriti includes the mind, so thoughts and feelings are natural processes, not consciousness itself.Full entry in the glossary "operates, in the form of the three gunas". Option A is about purusha and prakriti, not the gunas. Options B and C are true lines, but they describe the inner instrument.
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Answer: B. In Sankhya and Yoga the two never interact; their relation is "association by proximity" (Rao and Paranjpe, 2016, sec. 3.4). Liberation comes from telling them apart (vivekavivekaविवेकsay: vi-vay-kuhLiterally: discrimination, telling apartViveka is discernment: the ability to tell the real from the unreal, the lasting from the passing, and the true self from what is not the self.Western link Close to 'discernment' or 'wisdom', and partly to metacognition. The difference: its main object is the difference between the self and what the self observes.Full entry in the glossary), and kaivalyakaivalyaकैवल्यsay: kai-vuhl-yuhLiterally: aloneness, isolation (kevala, alone)Kaivalya is the final goal of Sankhya and Yoga: the 'aloneness' of pure consciousness (purusha), freed from all mixing with mind and matter.Western link No close match. It loosely resembles 'pure awareness' or witness consciousness, but kaivalya is a lasting freedom, not a passing state.Full entry in the glossary means consciousness standing alone. In the narrow sense of Yoga Sutra 3.55, a fully clear mind reflects purushapurushaपुरुषpuruṣasay: pu-ru-shuhLiterally: person, manIn Sankhya and Yoga, purusha is pure consciousness: the silent witness that is aware but does not act. It is completely separate from mind and matter.Western link Close to 'pure consciousness' or the 'witness' in consciousness studies. Unlike Descartes' mind, purusha does not think; thinking belongs to matter.Full entry in the glossary without distortion, but even then the two do not merge. Option A repeats the Vedanta reading of yoga as union; the commentator Bhoja Raja said that for Patanjali yoga means separation. Option C is wrong because purusha does not act, and option D describes merging, which Sankhya denies.
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Answer: C. In VedantaVedantaवेदान्तVedāntasay: vay-daan-tuhLiterally: end of the VedaVedanta is the family of schools based on the Upanishads. They ask how the self (atman) relates to ultimate reality (Brahman).Western link Sometimes compared with idealist philosophy, which holds that mind or spirit is basic. The key difference: Vedanta claims this can be known by direct experience, not only by argument.Full entry in the glossary, anandaanandaआनन्दānandasay: aa-nuhn-duhLiterally: bliss, joyAnanda means bliss: a deep, lasting joy. In Vedanta it is not a passing feeling but the very nature of the true self and of Brahman.Western link Loosely close to eudaimonic wellbeing or a peak experience. The difference: ananda is said to be permanent and to belong to the self, while positive emotions come and go with their causes.Full entry in the glossary is not an emotion. It is part of the nature of Brahman and the true self, uncovered when craving stops, not produced by good conditions. Ordinary sukhasukhaसुखsay: su-khuhLiterally: "good space"; ease, pleasure (su, good + kha, space)Sukha means pleasure, ease or happiness, the opposite of duhkha (pain). Indian texts separate passing pleasure from deeper, lasting happiness.Western link Close to 'positive emotion' and hedonic wellbeing in positive psychology. The difference: Indian texts treat pleasure from objects as unstable and a source of attachment, not as good in itself.Full entry in the glossary is close to positive emotion: a pleasant feeling that comes and goes. Option A is wrong because sukha is the everyday word for pleasure or ease, and option B is wrong because the Gita calls happiness from the senses meeting their objects rajasic, not sattvic. The texts also warn that pleasure from objects breeds attachment (Yoga Sutra 2.7), while PERMA treats positive emotion as good in itself.
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Answer: A. Peterson and Seligman's character strengthscharacter strengthsCharacter strengths are positive traits such as honesty, gratitude and hope. Peterson and Seligman (2004) listed 24 of them under six virtues.Indian link the yamas and niyamas of Yoga. The difference: the yamas are vows everyone must keep in full, not strengths a person has in different amounts.Full entry in the glossary are traits that each person has in some amount, and the advice is to use your top, or "signature", strengths. The Yoga Sutra (2.31) calls the yamasyamaयमsay: yuh-muhLiterally: restraint, controlThe yamas are the five moral restraints that begin the eight limbs of Yoga: non-harming, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint and non-possessiveness.Western link Close to ethical codes, and to self-control in psychology. The difference: the yamas are the first step of a mental training, not a separate set of rules.Full entry in the glossary a "great vow": everyone keeps all of them, at all times, so you do not pick your strongest yama. Option C is wrong because the vow is meant for everyone, and option D swaps the authors. The eight limbs are also a path toward samadhisamadhiसमाधिsamādhisay: suh-maa-dhiLiterally: putting together; complete absorption (sam + ā + dhā-)Samadhi is deep absorption in meditation, where the sense of a separate meditator fades and the mind becomes one with its object. It is the eighth limb of Yoga.Western link Close to 'altered' or non-ordinary states of consciousness, and loosely to deep flow. The difference: samadhi comes from long training and is said to give true knowledge.Full entry in the glossary, not a list of strengths for ordinary life.
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Answer: A. DvaitaDvaita Vedantaद्वैत वेदान्तDvaita Vedāntasay: dvai-tuh vay-daan-tuhLiterally: dualist Vedanta (dvaita, two-ness)Dvaita Vedanta is the dualist school of Vedanta founded by Madhva. It holds that God, souls and the world are real and forever distinct.Western link Close to classical theism in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, where the creature never becomes the Creator. Its quarrel with Advaita is like the quarrel between theism and mystical monism. The difference: Dvaita keeps the Indian frame of karma and rebirth, and liberation means release from that cycle.Full entry in the glossary, the dualist school founded by MadhvaMadhvaमध्वsay: muhdh-vuhIndian philosopher of the 13th century CE (dates usually given as 1238 to 1317), from South India, who founded Dvaita (dualist) Vedanta.Full entry in the glossary in the 13th century, holds that the soul depends on God and so is always distinct from God. It accepts the Upanishad's sentence but rejects Advaita's reading of it. AdvaitaAdvaita Vedantaअद्वैत वेदान्तAdvaita Vedāntasay: uhd-vai-tuh vay-daan-tuhLiterally: not-two; non-dualAdvaita Vedanta teaches that the true self (atman) and ultimate reality (Brahman) are one. The feeling of being a separate person comes from ignorance.Western link Often called monism. Advaita writers prefer 'non-dualism': reality is not two, but it is not described as one countable thing either.Full entry in the glossary reads "I am Brahman" (aham brahmasmiaham brahmasmiअहं ब्रह्मास्मिahaṃ brahmāsmisay: uh-huhm bruh-maas-miLiterally: I am Brahman (aham, I + brahma, Brahman + asmi, am)'Aham brahmasmi' means 'I am Brahman'. It is one of the four great sentences of the Upanishads, which Advaita Vedanta reads as the identity of the self with ultimate reality.Western link Sometimes compared with Maslow's self-transcendence. The difference: self-actualisation develops personal potential, and self-transcendence is an experience or a motive, while aham brahmasmi claims identity with ultimate reality.Full entry in the glossary) as a literal identity. Classical Sankhya has many selves but no God, and early Buddhism denies a lasting self, so neither fits.
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Answer: D. ResilienceresilienceResilience is doing well, or recovering well, in spite of adversity such as loss, illness or trauma.Indian link samatva and the Gita's steady person (sthitaprajna). The difference: samatva is evenness toward good events as well as bad ones.Full entry in the glossary is defined by a setback: you bounce back after a blow. The Gita (2.38) asks for evenness toward pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, so success tests samatvasamatvaसमत्वsay: suh-muht-vuhLiterally: evenness, sameness (sama, even + -tva, -ness)Samatva means evenness of mind: staying the same in success and failure, pleasure and pain, praise and blame. The Bhagavad Gita (2.48) calls it yoga itself.Western link Close to equanimity as meditation researchers define it, and loosely to resilience and emotion regulation. The difference: resilience is recovery after setbacks, while samatva is evenness toward good and bad events alike, and comes from loosening the ego's stake in results.Full entry in the glossary as much as failure does. Option B is the misreading Pandey warns against: samatva is not "not caring".
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Answer: B. Dictionaries define smashana vairagyasmashana vairagyaश्मशानवैराग्यśmaśāna-vairāgyasay: shmuh-shaa-nuh vai-raag-yuhLiterally: cremation-ground dispassion (shmashana, cremation ground)Smashana vairagya is the brief detachment people feel at a funeral, when life suddenly seems empty. It soon fades, so the tradition does not trust it.Western link No close Western match. Terror management theory studies how reminders of death change people for a short time, but it finds stronger defence of one's worldview, not detachment.Full entry in the glossary as a "momentary" loss of worldly desire at the sight of a cremation ground. Sivananda says such detachment, caused by some misery, "cannot help one to attain spiritual exaltation": the mind is waiting to get its desires back. Option D is tempting, but the fault is that the mood does not last, not that it is too strong. Lasting vairagyavairagyaवैराग्यvairāgyasay: vai-raag-yuhLiterally: absence of passion; loss of colour (vi + rāga)Vairagya is dispassion: freedom from craving for worldly pleasures and results. With practice (abhyasa), it is one of the two main supports of Yoga.Western link Close to non-attachment, and to reduced craving in addiction and mindfulness research. The difference: vairagya grows from insight into what lasts, not from suppression.Full entry in the glossary grows from vivekavivekaविवेकsay: vi-vay-kuhLiterally: discrimination, telling apartViveka is discernment: the ability to tell the real from the unreal, the lasting from the passing, and the true self from what is not the self.Western link Close to 'discernment' or 'wisdom', and partly to metacognition. The difference: its main object is the difference between the self and what the self observes.Full entry in the glossary, telling the real from the unreal.
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Answer: C. Rao and Paranjpe write that Indian psychology "is rich in its theoretical content", while positive psychology "is overwhelmingly practice oriented and data-driven with little theoretical binding". Option A reverses the two. Each field can learn from the other: Indian psychology needs "greater empirical grounding". The authors also name deep differences about knowledge and the self, so option D is wrong too.
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Answer: B. The Yoga Sutra (3.2) defines dhyanadhyanaध्यानdhyānasay: dhyaa-nuhLiterally: meditation, contemplation (dhyai-, to think)Dhyana is meditation: a steady, unbroken flow of attention toward one object. It is the seventh limb of Yoga, after concentration and before absorption.Western link Close to 'meditation', and to sustained attention in cognitive psychology. The difference: dhyana is one stage in a sequence, not a general word for any calming exercise.Full entry in the glossary as a continuous flow of the same thought toward one object. It comes after pratyaharapratyaharaप्रत्याहारpratyāhārasay: pruh-tyaa-haa-ruhLiterally: drawing back (prati + ā + hṛ-, to take)Pratyahara is withdrawal of the senses: turning attention inward so that outside sights and sounds no longer pull the mind. It is the fifth limb of Yoga.Western link Close to selective attention and sensory gating, or to the inward focus of relaxation and biofeedback. The difference: it is a deliberate step toward meditation.Full entry in the glossary and dharanadharanaधारणाdhāraṇāsay: dhaa-ruh-naaLiterally: holding, fixing (dhṛ-, to hold)Dharana is concentration: holding the mind on one place or object, such as the breath or a point. It is the sixth limb of Yoga.Western link Close to focused attention, as in research on focused-attention meditation. The difference: it is a step toward absorption, not an end in itself.Full entry in the glossary, in a path that begins with ethics. Open, non-judging awareness of whatever arises is closer to mindfulnessmindfulnessMindfulness is paying attention to the present moment, on purpose and without judging. It comes from Buddhist practice and is now widely used in therapy.Indian link sati (Pali; Sanskrit smriti), and the witness stance (sakshi) of Yoga and Vedanta.Full entry in the glossary as Kabat-Zinn teaches it. Length is not the issue, so option A is wrong, and dhyana in the Yoga Sutra is concentration, not prayer, so option C is wrong.
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Answer: D. Tilak held that "what the Gita means in using the word niskama is not to dispel desire, but to avoid greed and voracious or insatiable pursuit of gains". So nishkama karmanishkama karmaनिष्काम कर्मniṣkāma karmasay: nish-kaa-muh kuhr-muhLiterally: action without desire (niṣ + kāma + karma)Nishkama karma means doing one's duty without craving its results. The Bhagavad Gita teaches it as a way to act fully while staying calm and free.Western link Close to intrinsic motivation and to focusing on the process rather than the outcome. The difference: it is a spiritual discipline, with action offered as duty or to God.Full entry in the glossary does not ask the manager to stop caring: the manager should still plan and work well, while letting go of craving for the fruits. That is karma yogakarma yogaकर्मयोगkarmayogasay: kuhr-muh yo-guhLiterally: the yoga (discipline) of actionKarma yoga is the path of action: doing one's duty fully and well while giving up craving for its results. The Bhagavad Gita teaches it as a way to freedom.Western link Close to a focus on process rather than outcome, to intrinsic motivation and to flow, and to altruism when it serves others. The difference: flow is a passing, enjoyable state, while karma yoga is a lifelong attitude, held in dull or painful duty too, and aimed at liberation.Full entry in the glossary as Tilak read it. Option C is wrong too: the Gita (18.14) says the doer is only one of five causes of any result.
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Answer: A. Pandey writes that truth can be "an intimate subjective reality, deeply real to the one identified with it". Her experience is real and valid for her: it changes how she feels and acts. Psychologists of religion usually study such experience and its effects without deciding whether God exists, so the counsellor neither dismisses it nor treats it as proof.
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Answer: D. Ahimsaahimsaअहिंसाahiṃsāsay: uh-him-saaLiterally: not harming (a + hiṃsā, injury)Ahimsa means not harming any living being in thought, word or deed. It is the first restraint (yama) in Yoga and the central value of Jainism.Western link Close to 'non-violence' and to the 'do no harm' ethic of medicine and psychology. The difference: ahimsa extends to animals and to one's own thoughts.Full entry in the glossary means not harming any living being in thought, word or deed. It is a restraint, a "do not", that extends to all living beings, in Jainism even insects, and it is meant to hold whatever one feels. Empathy is a feeling, and research on it is mostly about humans, often people close to us. So imagining friends' feelings trains something narrower. Option A is wrong: ahimsa is the first yama of Yoga and the central value of Jainism. Option C is wrong too: Gandhi made ahimsa a political method, but the idea is far older than his politics.
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