Part 49 (1/2)

Udayana points out that the solar heat is the source of all the stores of heat required for chemical change. But there are differences in the modes of the action of heat; and the kind of contact with heat-corpuscles, or the kind of heat with chemical action which transforms colours, is supposed to differ from what transforms flavour or taste.

Heat and light rays are supposed to consist of indefinitely small particles which dart forth or radiate in all directions rectilineally with inconceivable velocity. Heat may penetrate through the interatomic s.p.a.ce as in the case of the conduction of heat, as when water boils in a pot put on the fire; in cases of transparency light rays penetrate through the inter-atomic s.p.a.ces with _parispanda_ of the nature of deflection or refraction (_tiryag-gamana_).

In other cases heat rays may impinge on the atoms and rebound back--which explains reflection. Lastly heat may strike the atoms in a peculiar way, so as to break up their grouping, transform the physico-chemical characters of the atoms, and again recombine them, all by means of continual impact with inconceivable velocity, an operation which explains all cases of chemical combination [Footnote ref l]. Govardhana a later Nyaya writer says that paka means the combination of different kinds of heat. The heat that

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[Footnote 1: See Dr Seal's _Positive Sciences of the Hindus_.]

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changes the colour of a fruit is different from that which generates or changes the taste. Even when the colour and taste remain the same a particular kind of heat may change the smell. When gra.s.s eaten by cows is broken up into atoms special kinds of heat-light rays change its old taste, colour, touch and smell into such forms as those that belong to milk [Footnote ref 1].

In the [email protected] system all action of matter on matter is thus resolved into motion. Conscious activity (_prayatna_) is distinguished from all forms of motion as against the [email protected] doctrine which considered everything other than [email protected] (intelligence) to arise in the course of cosmic evolution and therefore to be subject to vibratory motion.

The Origin of Knowledge ([email protected]).

The manner in which knowledge originates is one of the most favourite topics of discussion in Indian philosophy. We have already seen that [email protected] explained it by supposing that the buddhi (place of consciousness) a.s.sumed the form of the object of perception, and that the buddhi so transformed was then intelligized by the reflection of the pure intelligence or [email protected]

The Jains regarded the origin of any knowledge as being due to a withdrawal of a veil of karma which was covering the all-intelligence of the self.

[email protected] regarded all effects as being due to the a.s.semblage of certain collocations which unconditionally, invariably, and immediately preceded these effects. That collocation (_samagri_) which produced knowledge involved certain non-intelligent as well as intelligent elements and through their conjoint action uncontradicted and determinate knowledge was produced, and this collocation is thus called [email protected] or the determining cause of the origin of knowledge [Footnote ref 2]. None of the separate elements composing

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[Footnote 1: Govardhana's _Nyayabodhini_ on [email protected]_, pp. 9, 10.]

[Footnote 2: ”[email protected] vidadhati bodhabodhasvabhava samagri [email protected]_” _Nyayamanjari_, p. 12.

Udyotakara however defined ”[email protected]” as upalabdhihetu (cause of knowledge). This view does not go against Jayanta's view which I have followed, but it emphasizes the side of vyapara or movement of the senses, etc. by virtue of which the objects come in contact with them and knowledge is produced. Thus Vacaspati says: ”_siddhamindriyadi, asiddhanca [email protected] vyaparayannutpadayan [email protected] eva [email protected] [email protected]@m tvindriyadi [email protected] va nanyatra caritarthamiti [email protected] phale vyapriyate._” [email protected]_, p. 15. Thus it is the action of the senses as [email protected] which is the direct cause of the production of knowledge, but as this production could not have taken place without the subject and the object, they also are to be regarded as causes in some sense. _”[email protected]@h. pramane caritarthatvamacaritarthatvam pramanasya tasmat tadeva [email protected]

[email protected] tu phaloddes'ena [email protected] iti taddhetu kathancit.”

Ibid._ p. 16.]

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the causal collocation can be called the primary cause; it is only their joint collocation that can be said to determine the effect, for sometimes the absence of a single element composing the causal collocation is sufficient to stop the production of the effect. Of course the collocation or combination is not an ent.i.ty separated from the collocated or combined things. But in any case it is the preceding collocations that combine to produce the effect jointly.

These involve not only intellectual elements (e.g. indeterminate cognition as qualification ([email protected]@na) in determinate perceptions, the knowledge of [email protected] in inference, the seeing of similar things in upamana, the hearing of sound in s'abda) but also the a.s.semblage of such physical things (e.g. proximity of the object of perception, capacity of the sense, light, etc.), which are all indispensable for the origin of knowledge. The cognitive and physical elements all co-operate in the same plane, combine together and produce further determinate knowledge. It is this capacity of the collocations that is called [email protected]

Nyaya argues that in the [email protected] view knowledge originates by the transcendent influence of [email protected] on a particular state of buddhi; this is quite unintelligible, for knowledge does not belong to buddhi as it is non-intelligent, though it contains within it the content and the form of the concept or the percept (knowledge). The [email protected] to whom the knowledge belongs, however, neither knows, nor feels, neither conceives nor perceives, as it always remains in its own transcendental purity. If the transcendental contact of the [email protected] with buddhi is but a mere semblance or appearance or illusion, then the [email protected] has to admit that there is no real knowledge according to them. All knowledge is false. And since all knowledge is false, the [email protected] have precious little wherewith to explain the origin of right knowledge.

There are again some Buddhists who advocate the doctrine that simultaneously with the generation of an object there is the knowledge corresponding to it, and that corresponding to the rise of any knowledge there is the rise of the object of it. Neither is the knowledge generated by the object nor the object by the knowledge; but there is a sort of simultaneous parallelism. It is evident that this view does not explain why knowledge should

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express or manifest its object. If knowledge and the object are both but corresponding points in a parallel series, whence comes this correspondence? Why should knowledge illuminate the object. The doctrine of the Vijnana vadins, that it is knowledge alone that shows itself both as knowledge and as its object, is also irrational, for how can knowledge divide itself as subject and object in such a manner that knowledge as object should require the knowledge as subject to illuminate it? If this be the case we might again expect that knowledge as knowledge should also require another knowledge to manifest it and this another, and so on _ad infinitum_. Again if [email protected] be defined as [email protected]_ (capacity of being realized) then also it would not hold, for all things being momentary according to the Buddhists, the thing known cannot be realized, so there would be nothing which could be called [email protected] These views moreover do not explain the origin of knowledge. Knowledge is thus to be regarded as an effect like any other effect, and its origin or production occurs in the same way as any other effect, namely by the joint collocation of causes intellectual and physical [Footnote ref 1]. There is no transcendent element involved in the production of knowledge, but it is a production on the same plane as that in which many physical phenomena are produced [Footnote ref 2].

The four [email protected] of Nyaya.

We know that the Carvakas admitted perception ([email protected]_) alone as the valid source of knowledge. The Buddhists and the [email protected] admitted two sources, [email protected] and inference (_anumana_); [email protected] added _s'abda_ (testimony) as the third source;

[Footnote 1: See _Nyayamanjari_, pp. 12-26.]