Vidya (Sanskrit: विद्या, [ʋɪd̪jɑː], IAST: vidyā) figures prominently in all texts pertaining to Indian philosophy – meaning science, learning, knowledge, and scholarship.
[5] The process of gaining the knowledge of the Atman cannot commence unless one has explored the Prānavidya or Agnividya to the full in all its numerous phase; through vidyā or upasana to jnana was always the eternal order indicated by the Upanishads.
Vidyā comes from the root vid ("to know"); it therefore means knowledge, science, learning, lore, scholarship and philosophy.
[8] Agni Vidyā or the science of fire is said to be the greatest discovery of the ancient Indians who gained direct experience of divine fire through continuous research, contemplation, observation and experimentation; their experience led them to discover ways of using this knowledge to heal and nurture the outer and the inner worlds.
The gods, goddesses, divinities and nature's forces are grouped in seven main categories which match with the qualities of the seven tongues of fire.
Vedanta literature is only preparatory to it, it dispels ignorance and makes the mind receptive but does not reveal the truth therefore it is an indirect means of knowledge.
[11] The sage of the Mundaka Upanishad (Verse I.1.4), more in the context of the ritualistic than of epistemological concerns, states that there are two kinds of knowledge (vidyā) to be attained, the higher (para) and the lower (apara).
[14] In upāsanā the movement starts from the outer extremities and gradually penetrates into the inmost recesses of the soul, and the whole investigation is conducted in two spheres, in the subject as well as in the object, in the individual as well as in the world, in the aham as also in the idam , in the adhyātma and also in adhidaiva spheres and conducted synthetically as well as analytically, through apti as well as samrddhi, which the Bhagavad Gita calls yoga and vibhooti .
The concept of Shakti, in its most abstract terms, relates to the energetic principle of ultimate reality, the dynamic aspect of the divine.
The ten Mahāvidyās are bestowers or personifications of transcendent and liberating religious knowledge; the term Vidyā in this context refers to power, essence of reality and the mantras.
When later, discarding the abstraction of the Self and the exterior, clear identification with the insentient space takes place, it is called isvara-tattva; the investigation of these two last steps is pure vidyā (knowledge).
[22] In Buddhism, the pañcavidyā (Sanskrit; Chinese: 五明; pinyin: wǔ-míng) or "five sciences" are the five major classes of knowledge (vidyā) which bodhisattvas are said to have mastered.