Part 44 (1/2)

Endeavour means what is done by speech, understanding, and body. [email protected] (attachment, antipathy, etc) are those which lead men to virtue and vice. Pain is that which causes suffering [Footnote ref 2]. Ultimate cessation from pain is called _apavarga_ [Footnote ref 3].

Doubt arises when through confusion of similar qualities or conflicting opinions etc., one wants to settle one of the two alternatives. That for attaining which, or for giving up which one sets himself to work is called _prayojana_.

Ill.u.s.trative example ([email protected]@[email protected]_) is that on which both the common man and the expert ([email protected]_) hold the same opinion.

Established texts or conclusions (_siddhanta_) are of four kinds, viz (1) those which are accepted by all schools of thought called the _sarvatantrasiddhanta_; (2) those which are held by one school or similar schools but opposed by others called the _prat.i.tantrasiddhanta_; (3) those which being accepted other conclusions will also naturally follow called [email protected]_; (4) those of the opponent's views which are uncritically granted by a debater, who proceeds then to refute the consequences that follow and thereby show his own special skill and bring the opponent's intellect to disrepute (_abhyupagamasiddhanta_) [Footnote ref 4]. The premisses are five:

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[Footnote 1: Here I have followed Vatsyayana's meaning.]

[Footnote 2: Vatsyayana comments here that when one finds all things full of misery, he wishes to avoid misery, and finding birth to be a.s.sociated with pain becomes unattached and thus is emanc.i.p.ated.]

[Footnote 3: Vatsyayana wants to emphasise that there is no bliss in salvation, but only cessation from pain.]

[Footnote 4: I have followed Vatsyayana's interpretation here.]

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(1) _pratijna_ (the first enunciation of the thing to be proved); (2) _hetu_ (the reason which establishes the conclusion on the strength of the similarity of the case in hand with known examples or negative instances); (3) [email protected]_ (positive or negative ill.u.s.trative instances); (4) _upanaya_ (corroboration by the instance); (5) _nigamana_ (to reach the conclusion which has been proved).

Then come the definitions of tarka, [email protected], vada, jalpa, [email protected]@da, the fallacies (hetvabhasa), chala, jati, and nigrahasthana, which have been enumerated in the first sutra.

The second book deals with the refutations of objections against the means of right knowledge (pramana). In refutation of certain objections against the possibility of the happening of doubt, which held that doubt could not happen, since there was always a difference between the two things regarding which doubt arose, it is held that doubt arises when the special differentiating characteristics between the two things are not noted.

Certain objectors, probably the Buddhists, are supposed to object to the validity of the [email protected] in general and particularly of perceptions on the ground that if they were generated before the sense-object contact, they could not be due to the latter, and if they are produced after the sense-object contact, they could not establish the nature of the objects, and if the two happened together then there would be no notion of succession in our cognitions. To this the Nyaya reply is that if there were no means of right knowledge, then there would be no means of knowledge by means of which the objector would refute all means of right knowledge; if the objector presumes to have any means of valid knowledge then he cannot say that there are no means of valid knowledge at all. Just as from the diverse kinds of sounds of different musical instruments, one can infer the previous existence of those different kinds of musical instruments, so from our knowledge of objects we can infer the previous existence of those objects of knowledge [Footnote ref 1].

The same things (e.g. the senses, etc.) which are regarded as instruments of right knowledge with reference to the right cognition of other things may themselves be the objects of right

[Footnote 1: _Yathapas'catsiddhena s'abdena purvasiddham atodyamanumiyate sadhyam ca atodyam sadhanam ca [email protected] antarhite hyatodye [email protected] anumanam bhavat.i.ti, [email protected] vadyate [email protected]@h puryyate iti [email protected]@na [email protected] pratipadyate tatha purvasiddham [email protected] pas'catsiddhena upalabdhihetuna pratipadyate. Vatsyayana [email protected],_ II.

i. 15.]

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knowledge. There are no hard and fast limits that those which are instruments of knowledge should always be treated as mere instruments, for they themselves may be objects of right knowledge.

The means of right knowledge ([email protected]) do not require other sets of means for revealing them, for they like the light of a lamp in revealing the objects of right knowledge reveal themselves as well.

Coming to the question of the correctness of the definition of perception, it is held that the definition includes the contact of the soul with the mind [Footnote ref 1]. Then it is said that though we perceive only parts of things, yet since there is a whole, the perception of the part will naturally refer to the whole. Since we can pull and draw things wholes exist, and the whole is not merely the parts collected together, for were it so one could say that we perceived the ultimate parts or the atoms [Footnote ref 2].

Some objectors hold that since there may be a plurality of causes it is wrong to infer particular causes from particular effects. To this the Nyaya answer is that there is always such a difference in the specific nature of each effect that if properly observed each particular effect will lead us to a correct inference of its own particular cause [Footnote ref 3]. In refuting those who object to the existence of time on the ground of relativity, it is said that if the present time did not exist, then no perception of it would have been possible.

The past and future also exist, for otherwise we should not have perceived things as being done in the past or as going to be done in the future. The validity of a.n.a.logy (upamana) as a means of knowledge and the validity of the Vedas is then proved.

The four [email protected] of perception, inference, a.n.a.logy, and scripture

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[Footnote 1: Here the sutras, II. i. 20-28, are probably later interpolations to answer criticisms, not against the Nyaya doctrine of perception, but against the wording of the definition of perception as given in the,_Nyaya sutra_, II. i. 4.]

[Footnote 2: This is a refutation of the doctrines of the Buddhists, who rejected the existence of wholes (avayavi). On this subject a later Buddhist monograph by Pandita As'oka (9th century A.D.), [email protected]_ in _Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts_, may be referred to.]

[Footnote 3: [email protected]@tam khalu [email protected] s'ighrataram srotasa [email protected]@[email protected] [email protected], nadya upari [email protected]@sto deva ityanuminoti [email protected]@na. [email protected] [email protected]_, II. i. 38. The inference that there has been rain up the river is not made merely from seeing the rise of water, but from the rainwater augmenting the previous water of the river and carrying with its current large quant.i.ties of foam, fruits, leaves, wood, etc. These characteristics, a.s.sociated with the rise of water, mark it as a special kind of rise of water, which can only be due to the happening of rain up the river].

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are quite sufficient and it is needless to accept arthapatti (implication), aitihya (tradition), sambhava (when a thing is understood in terms of higher measure the lower measure contained in it is also understood--if we know that there is a bushel of corn anywhere we understand that the same contains eight gallons of corn as well) and abhava (non-existence) as separate [email protected] for the tradition is included in verbal testimony and arthapatti, sambhava and abhava are included within inference.