Part 56 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: It is important to note that it is not unlikely that k.u.marila was indebted to [email protected] for this; for [email protected]'s main contention is that ”it is not fire, nor the connection between it and the hill, but it is the fiery hill that is inferred” for otherwise inference would give us no new knowledge see [email protected]@na's _Indian Logic_, p. 87 and [email protected]_, p. 120.]

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absence of the gamaka or vyapya, should also be noted, for a knowledge of such a negative relation is not indispensable for the forming of the notion of the permanent relation [Footnote ref 1]. The experience of a large number of particular cases in which any two things were found to coexist together in another thing in some relation a.s.sociated with the non-perception of any case of failure creates an expectancy in us of inferring the presence of the gamya in that thing in which the gamaka is perceived to exist in exactly the same relation [Footnote ref 2]. In those cases where the circle of the existence of the gamya coincides with the circle of the existence of the gamaka, each of them becomes a gamaka for the other.

It is clear that this form of inference not only includes all cases of cause and effect, of genus and species but also all cases of coexistence as well.

The question arises that if no inference is possible without a memory of the permanent relation, is not the self-validity of inference destroyed on that account, for memory is not regarded as self-valid. To this k.u.marila's answer is that memory is not invalid, but it has not the status of pramana, as it does not bring to us a new knowledge. But inference involves the acquirement of a new knowledge in this, that though the coexistence of two things in another was known in a number of cases, yet in the present case a new case of the existence of the gamya in a thing is known from the perception of the existence of the gamaka and this knowledge is gained by a means which is not perception, for it is only the gamaka that is seen and not the gamya. If the gamya is also seen it is no inference at all.

As regards the number of propositions necessary for the explicit statement of the process of inference for convincing others (_pararthanumana_) both k.u.marila and Prabhakara hold that three premisses are quite sufficient for inference. Thus the first three premisses pratijna, hetu and [email protected] may quite serve the purpose of an anumana.

There are two kinds of anumana according to k.u.marila viz. [email protected]@rstasambandha and [email protected]@[email protected]

The former is that kind of inference where the permanent

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[Footnote 1: k.u.marila strongly opposes a Buddhist view that concomitance (_vyapti_) is ascertained only by the negative instances and not by the positive ones.]

[Footnote 2: ”_tasmadanavagate'pi sarvatranvaye sarvatas'ca vyatireke bahus'ah sahityavagamamatradeva [email protected]@h._”

_Nyayaratnakara_, p. 288.]

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relation between two concrete things, as in the case of smoke and fire, has been noticed. The latter is that kind of inference where the permanent relation is observed not between two concrete things but between two general notions, as in the case of movement and change of place, e.g. the perceived cases where there is change of place there is also motion involved with it; so from the change of place of the sun its motion is inferred and it is held that this general notion is directly perceived like all universals [Footnote ref 1].

Prabhakara recognizes the need of forming the notion of the permanent relation, but he does not lay any stress on the fact that this permanent relation between two things (fire and smoke) is taken in connection with a third thing in which they both subsist. He says that the notion of the permanent relation between two things is the main point, whereas in all other a.s.sociations of time and place the things in which these two subsist together are taken only as adjuncts to qualify the two things (e.g. fire and smoke). It is also necessary to recognize the fact that though the concomitance of smoke in fire is only conditional, the concomitance of the fire in smoke is unconditional and absolute [Footnote ref 2]. When such a conviction is firmly rooted in the mind that the concept of the presence of smoke involves the concept of the presence of fire, the inference of fire is made as soon as any smoke is seen. Prabhakara counts separately the fallacies of the minor ([email protected]_), of the enunciation (_pratijnabhasa_) and of the example ([email protected]@[email protected]_) along with the fallacies of the middle and this seems to indicate that the [email protected] logic was not altogether free from Buddhist influence. The cognition of smoke includes within itself the cognition of fire also, and thus there would be nothing left unknown to be cognized by the inferential cognition. But this objection has little force with Prabhakara, for he does not admit that a [email protected] should necessarily bring us any new knowledge, for [email protected] is simply defined as ”apprehension.”

So though the inferential cognition always pertains to things already known it is yet regarded by him as a [email protected], since it is in any case no doubt an apprehension.

[Footnote 1: See _S'lokavarttika, Nyayaratnakara, S'astradipika, [email protected], Siddhantacandrika_ on anumana.]

[Footnote 2: On the subject of the means of a.s.suring oneself that there is no condition (_upadhi_) which may vitiate the inference, Prabhakara has nothing new to tell us. He says that where even after careful enquiry in a large number of cases the condition cannot be discovered we must say that it does not exist ([email protected]@ne aupadhikatvanavagamat_, see [email protected]_, p. 71).]

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Upamana, Arthapatti.

a.n.a.logy (_upamana_) is accepted by [email protected] in a sense which is different from that in which Nyaya took it. The man who has seen a cow (_go_) goes to the forest and sees a wild ox (_gavaya_), and apprehends the similarity of the gavaya with the _go,_ and then cognizes the similarity of the _go_ (which is not within the limits of his perception then) with the _gavaya._ The cognition of this similarity of the _gavaya_ in the _go,_ as it follows directly from the perception of the similarity of the _go_ in the _gavaya,_ is called upamana (a.n.a.logy). It is regarded as a separate [email protected], because by it we can apprehend the similarity existing in a thing which is not perceived at the moment. It is not mere remembrance, for at the time the _go_ was seen the _gavaya_ was not seen, and hence the similarity also was not seen, and what was not seen could not be remembered. The difference of Prabhakara and k.u.marila on this point is that while the latter regards similarity as only a quality consisting in the fact of more than one object having the same set of qualities, the former regards it as a distinct category.

_Arthapatti_ (implication) is a new [email protected] which is admitted by the [email protected] Thus when we know that a person Devadatta is alive and perceive that he is not in the house, we cannot reconcile these two facts, viz. his remaining alive and his not being in the house without presuming his existence somewhere outside the house, and this method of cognizing the existence of Devadatta outside the house is called _arthapatti_ (presumption or implication).

The exact psychological a.n.a.lysis of the mind in this arthapatti cognition is a matter on which Prabhakara and k.u.marila disagree. Prabhakara holds that when a man knows that Devadatta habitually resides in his house but yet does not find him there, his knowledge that Devadatta is living (though acquired previously by some other means of proof) is made doubtful, and the cause of this doubt is that he does not find Devadatta at his house. The absence of Devadatta from the house is not the cause of implication, but it throws into doubt the very existence of Devadatta, and thus forces us to imagine that Devadatta must remain somewhere outside. That can only be found by implication, without the hypothesis of which the doubt cannot be removed.

The mere absence of Devadatta from the house is not enough for

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making the presumption that he is outside the house, for he might also be dead. But I know that Devadatta was living and also that he was not at home; this perception of his absence from home creates a doubt as regards my first knowledge that he is living, and it is for the removal of this doubt that there creeps in the presumption that he must be living somewhere else. The perception of the absence of Devadatta through the intermediate link of a doubt pa.s.ses into the notion of a presumption that he must then remain somewhere else. In inference there is no element of doubt, for it is only when the smoke is perceived to exist beyond the least element of doubt that the inference of the fire is possible, but in presumption the perceived non-existence in the house leads to the presumption of an external existence only when it has thrown the fact of the man's being alive into doubt and uncertainty [Footnote ref 1].

k.u.marila however objects to this explanation of Prabhakara, and says that if the fact that Devadatta is living is made doubtful by the absence of Devadatta at his house, then the doubt may as well be removed by the supposition that Devadatta is dead, for it does not follow that the doubt with regard to the life of Devadatta should necessarily be resolved by the supposition of his being outside the house. Doubt can only be removed when the cause or the root of doubt is removed, and it does not follow that because Devadatta is not in the house therefore he is living. If it was already known that Devadatta was living and his absence from the house creates the doubt, how then can the very fact which created the doubt remove the doubt? The cause of doubt cannot be the cause of its removal too. The real procedure of the presumption is quite the other way. The doubt about the life of Devadatta being removed by previous knowledge or by some other means, we may presume that he must be outside the house when he is found absent from the house. So there cannot be any doubt about the life of Devadatta. It is the certainty of his life a.s.sociated with the perception of his absence from the house that leads us to the presumption of his external existence.

There is an opposition between the life of Devadatta and his absence from the house, and the mind cannot come to rest without the presumption of his external existence. The mind oscillates between two contradictory poles both of which it accepts but