---
type: Concept
bundle: mimamsa-dharma
bundle_version: 0.10.0
id: svatah-pramanya
title: Svataḥ-prāmāṇya
iast: Svataḥ-prāmāṇya
devanagari: स्वतःप्रामाण्य
description: 'The doctrine that a cognition''''s validity is intrinsic, arising with the cognition itself and holding unless a defeater appears; Mīmāṃsā''''s guarantee of the Veda''''s self-authority. School-scoped from its Mīmāṃsā source; NOT blind faith, NOT circular self-certification, NOT the claim that all cognitions are true.'
darshana:
- Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā
school_scope: 'Treated here from its Mīmāṃsā source, where it secures the self-validity of Vedic knowledge and grounds apauruṣeyatva. vedanta-epistemology v0.3 covers svataḥ-prāmāṇya within Advaita, which inherits it for the self-validity of the liberating śruti. School-scoped and cross-linked, not duplicated.'
text_source: Ślokavārttika, codanā-sūtra
tags:
- svatah-pramanya
- mimamsa
- intrinsic-validity
- epistemology
not:
- term: 'blind faith'
  why: 'Faith accepts without evidence and often against it. Svataḥ-prāmāṇya is a thesis about the source of validity: a cognition is presumptively valid by the very factors that produce it and is overturned only by a defeater (a contradicting cognition or a known defect). It is defeasible, not blind.'
  instead: 'Render svataḥ-prāmāṇya as the intrinsic, defeasible validity of cognition, not blind faith.'
- term: 'circular self-certification'
  why: 'The doctrine does not say a cognition certifies itself by asserting its own truth. It says validity is not a further property added by external testing but is given with the cognition, pending a defeater; the asymmetry (validity intrinsic, invalidity extrinsic from defects) is the actual claim.'
- term: 'the view that all cognitions are true'
  why: 'Error is real for Mīmāṃsā. Svataḥ-prāmāṇya holds we are entitled to a cognition until it is defeated, with the burden of proof on the doubter, not that nothing is ever false.'
related:
- /concepts/apauruseyatva.md
- /concepts/dharma.md
- /concepts/codana.md
timestamp: '2026-07-08'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Svataḥ-prāmāṇya -- स्वतःप्रामाण्य

**Not:** blind faith, circular self-certification, the view that all cognitions are true

## What It Actually Means

If the validity of knowledge required external verification, that verification would need its own, without end, and knowledge could never start. Mīmāṃsā, above all Kumārila, cuts the regress: a cognition arises already bearing its claim to truth, and we are warranted in it unless and until a defeater appears, with the burden of proof always on the one who alleges falsity (svataḥ-prāmāṇya paired with paratah-aprāmāṇya). For the Veda this is decisive: since Vedic cognition has no author whose reliability could be questioned and no perceptual source to re-check, its self-validity secures dharma-knowledge.

## The v0.3 Boundary

This is a Mīmāṃsā doctrine that Advaita inherits for the self-validity of the liberating śruti. vedanta-epistemology v0.3 treats svataḥ-prāmāṇya within Advaita; here it carries its Mīmāṃsā ritual-authority work. The two are school-scoped and reciprocally cross-linked, not duplicates: the general pramāṇa mechanics live in v0.3.

## Audience Metaphor

You do not re-verify that you are in pain before trusting that you are; the pain arrives already carrying its own credential, and only a specific reason could dislodge it. Svataḥ-prāmāṇya says knowledge in general comes with its credential attached, revocable only on cause.

## Citations

1. Kumārila, Ślokavārttika, the svataḥ-prāmāṇya section of the codanā-sūtra -- see [references/slokavarttika.md](../references/slokavarttika.md)
2. Cross-bundle: svataḥ-prāmāṇya in vedanta-epistemology v0.3, the Advaita treatment, school-scoped and reciprocally linked; same doctrine, different darśana
