Or tradition and history, whichever you prefer!
Both are important - without history we won't know what actually happened, ie. whether that painting was painted for a certain shah/emperor/sultan, whether it was taken in battle/cut out of a book, biographies of artists etc... - without tradition we won't recognise the symbolism and spirituality inherent in the colours, the underlying geometry and patterns, significance of certain elements, etc...
SO I think it needs to be a balance of both. You can learn history from books, libraries, museums/galleries, art historians, online etc. There is a wealth of information out there. You can learn tradition from a practitioner. And ultimately you marry both in your understanding of this world.