Knowledge as the Path to Freedom: Comparative Epistemologies of Mukti in Indian Thought

Abstract

Through a comparative analysis of the main Indian philosophical traditions, this dissertation investigates the close relationship between knowledge (jñāna) and emancipation (mukti). I analyse how Advaita Vedānta, Sāṅkhya-Yoga, Buddhism, and Jainism understand knowledge as a transforming realization that reconstitutes the entire structure of subjectivity, rather than just as a cognitive process, using a critical and dialogical approach. Sāṃkhya and Yoga stress discriminative insight (viveka-khyāti) between puruṣa and prakṛti, but Advaita associates liberating knowledge with the non-dual realization of the identity between ātman and Brahman. While Jain philosophy promotes a pluralistic and perspectival model that culminates in omniscience (kevala-jñāna), Buddhist epistemology challenges essentialist ontologies by redefining liberation via knowledge into impermanence and non-self. Using this comparative framework, I contend that while Indian epistemologies differ greatly in their methodological approaches and metaphysical commitments, they share the idea that ignorance (avidyā) is existential bondage and knowledge is soteriological freedom. These traditions broaden current philosophical discussions on selfhood, consciousness, and the moral obligation of knowing by emphasizing emancipation as the ultimate goal of epistemic investigation. The study shows that by combining ontology, praxis, and transformation into a single conception of freedom, Indian conceptions of knowledge offer a strong substitute for simply analytical explanations. In the end, I argue that knowledge in Indian thought is awakening—an emancipatory reorientation of being; rather than accumulation.