A History of Indian Philosophy Part 52

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[Footnote 1: Pras'astapada's [email protected] with _Nyayakandali_, pp. 200-255.]

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the desired connection [Footnote ref 1]. Vacaspati in his refutation of this view says that the cause-effect relation cannot be determined as a separate relation. If causality means invariable immediate antecedence such that there being fire there is smoke and there being no fire there is no smoke, then it cannot be ascertained with perfect satisfaction, for there is no proof that in each case the smoke was caused by fire and not by an invisible demon. Unless it can be ascertained that there was no invisible element a.s.sociated, it cannot be said that the smoke was immediately preceded by fire and fire alone. Again accepting for the sake of argument that causality can be determined, then also cause is known to precede the effect and therefore the perception of smoke can only lead us to infer the presence of fire at a preceding time and not contemporaneously with it. Moreover there are many cases where inference is possible, but there is no relation of cause and effect or of ident.i.ty of essence (e.g. the sunrise of this morning by the sunrise of yesterday morning). In the case of ident.i.ty of essence (_tadatmya_ as in the case of the pine and the tree) also there cannot be any inference, for one thing has to be inferred by another, but if they are identical there cannot be any inference. The nature of concomitance therefore cannot be described in either of these ways. Some things (e.g. smoke) are naturally connected with some other things (e.g. fire) and when such is the case, though we may not know any further about the nature of this connection, we may infer the latter from the former and not vice versa, for fire is connected with smoke only under certain conditions (e.g. green wood). It may be argued that there may always be certain unknown conditions which may vitiate the validity of inference. To this Vacaspati's answer is that if even after observing a large number of cases and careful search such conditions (_upadhi_) cannot be discovered, we have to take it for granted that they do not exist and that there is a natural connection between the middle and the major. The later Buddhists introduced the method of [email protected]_ in order to determine effectively the causal relation. These five conditions determining the causal relation are (1) neither the cause nor the effect is perceived, (2) the cause is perceived, (3) in immediate succession the effect is perceived, (4) the cause disappears, (5) in

[Footnote 1: [email protected] svabhavadva niyamakat avinabhavaniyamo'

dars'ananna na dars'anat. [email protected]_, p. 105.]

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immediate succession the effect disappears. But this method cannot guarantee the infallibility of the determination of cause and effect relation; and if by the a.s.sumption of a cause-effect relation no higher degree of certainty is available, it is better to accept a natural relation without limiting it to a cause-effect relation [Footnote ref 1].

In early Nyaya books three kinds of inference are described, namely purvavat, [email protected], and [email protected]@[email protected] Purvavat is the inference of effects from causes, e.g. that of impending rain from heavy dark clouds; [email protected] is the inference of causes from effects, e.g. that of rain from the rise of water in the river; [email protected]@[email protected] refers to the inference in all cases other than those of cause and effect, e.g. the inference of the sour taste of the tamarind from its form and colour. _Nyayamanjari_ mentions another form of anumana, namely [email protected] (_reductio ad absurdum_), which consists in a.s.serting anything (e.g. consciousness) of any other thing (e.g. atman), because it was already definitely found out that consciousness was not produced in any other part of man. Since consciousness could not belong to anything else, it must belong to soul of necessity. In spite of these variant forms they are all however of one kind, namely that of the inference of the probandum (_sadhya_) by virtue of the unconditional and invariable concomitance of the hetu, called the vyapti-niyama. In the new school of Nyaya (Navya-Nyaya) a formal distinction of three kinds of inference occupies an important place, namely anvayavyatireki, kevalanvayi, and kevalavyatireki. Anvayavyatireki is that inference where the vyapti has been observed by a combination of a large number of instances of agreement in presence and agreement in absence, as in the case of the concomitance of smoke and fire (wherever there is smoke there is fire (_anvaya_), and where there is no fire, there is no smoke (_vyatireka_)). An inference could be for one's own self (_svarthanumana_) or for the sake of convincing others (_pararthanumana_). In the latter case, when it was necessary that an inference should be put explicitly in an unambiguous manner, live propositions (_avayavas_) were regarded as necessary, namely pratijna (e.g. the hill is fiery), hetu (since it has smoke), [email protected] (where there is smoke there is fire, as in the kitchen), upanaya (this hill has smoke), [email protected] (therefore it has got

[Footnote 1: [email protected]'s bhasya, Udyotakara's _Varttika_ and [email protected],_ I.i. 5.]

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fire). Kevalanvayi is that type of inference, the vyapti of which could not be based on any negative instance, as in the case "this object has a name, since it is an object of knowledge ([email protected], vacyam prameyatvat_)." Now no such case is known which is not an object of knowledge; we cannot therefore know of any case where there was no object of knowledge (_prameyatva_) and no name (_vacyatva_); the vyapti here has therefore to be based necessarily on cases of agreement--wherever there is prameyatva or an object of knowledge, there is vacyatva or name.

The third form of kevalavyatireki is that where positive instances in agreement cannot be found, such as in the case of the inference that earth differs from other elements in possessing the specific quality of smell, since all that does not differ from other elements is not earth, such as water; here it is evident that there cannot be any positive instance of agreement and the concomitance has to be taken from negative instances. There is only one instance, which is exactly the proposition of our inference--earth differs from other elements, since it has the special qualities of earth. This inference could be of use only in those cases where we had to infer anything by reason of such special traits of it as was possessed by it and it alone.

Upamana and S'abda.

The third [email protected], which is admitted by Nyaya and not by [email protected], is _upamana_, and consists in a.s.sociating a thing unknown before with its name by virtue of its similarity with some other known thing. Thus a man of the city who has never seen a wild ox (_gavaya_) goes to the forest, asks a forester--"what is gavaya?" and the forester replies--"oh, you do not know it, it is just like a cow"; after hearing this from the forester he travels on, and on seeing a gavaya and finding it to be similar to a cow he forms the opinion that this is a gavaya.

This knowing an hitherto unknown thing by virtue of its similarity to a known thing is called _upamana_. If some forester had pointed out a gavaya to a man of the city and had told him that it was called a gavaya, then also the man would have known the animal by the name gavaya, but then this would have been due to testimony ([email protected]). The knowledge is said to be generated by the upamana process when the a.s.sociation of the unknown animal with its name is made by the observer

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on the strength of the experience of the similarity of the unknown animal to a known one. The naiyayikas are thorough realists, and as such they do not regard the observation of similarity as being due to any subjective process of the mind.

Similarity is indeed perceived by the visual sense but yet the a.s.sociation of the name in accordance with the perception of similarity and the instruction received is a separate act and is called _upamana_ [Footnote ref 1].

[email protected] or testimony is the right knowledge which we derive from the utterances of infallible and absolutely truthful persons. All knowledge derived from the Vedas is valid, for the Vedas were uttered by is'vara himself. The Vedas give us right knowledge not of itself, but because they came out as the utterances of the infallible is'vara. The [email protected] did not admit s'abda as a separate [email protected], but they sought to establish the validity of testimony (_s'abda_) on the strength of inference (_anumiti_) on the ground of its being the utterance of an infallible person. But as I have said before, this explanation is hardly corroborated by the [email protected] sutras, which tacitly admit the validity of the scriptures on its own authority. But anyhow this was how [email protected] was interpreted in later times.

Negation in [email protected]

The problem of negation or non-existence (_abhava_) is of great interest in Indian philosophy. In this section we can describe its nature only from the point of view of perceptibility. k.u.marila [Footnote ref 2]

[Footnote 1: See _Nyayamanjari_ on upamana. The oldest Nyaya view was that the instruction given by the forester by virtue of which the a.s.sociation of the name "wild ox" to the strange animal was possible was itself "upamana." When Pras'astapada held that upamana should be treated as a case of testimony (_aptavacana_), he had probably this interpretation in view. But Udyotakara and Vacaspati hold that it was not by the instruction alone of the forester that the a.s.sociation of the name "wild ox" was made, but there was the perception of similarity, and the memory of the instruction of the forester too. So it is the perception of similarity with the other two factors as accessories that lead us to this a.s.sociation called upamana. What [email protected] meant is not very clear, but [email protected] supposes that according to him the result of upamana was the knowledge of similarity or the knowledge of a thing having similarity. Vacaspati of course holds that he has correctly interpreted [email protected]'s intention. It is however definite that upamana means the a.s.sociating of a name to a new object ([email protected]_, [email protected]). Jayanta points out that it is the preception of similarity which directly leads to the a.s.sociation of the name and hence the instruction of the forester cannot be regarded as the direct cause and consequently it cannot be cla.s.sed under testimony (_s'abda_). See Pras'astapada and _Nyayakandali,_ pp. 220-22, [email protected], Udyotakara, Vacaspati and Jayanta on _Upamana_.]

[Footnote 2: See k.u.marila's treatment of abhava in the _S'lokavarttika_, pp. 473-492.]

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and his followers, whose philosophy we shall deal with in the next chapter, hold that negation (_abhava_) appears as an intuition (_manam_) with reference to the object negated where there are no means of ordinary cognition ([email protected]_) leading to prove the existence (_satparicchedakam_) of that thing. They held that the notion "it is not existent" cannot be due to perception, for there is no contact here with sense and object. It is true indeed that when we turn our eyes (e.g. in the case of the perception of the non-existence of a jug) to the ground, we see both the ground and the non-existence of a jug, and when we shut them we can see neither the jug nor the ground, and therefore it could be urged that if we called the ground visually perceptible, we could say the same with regard to the non-existence of the jug. But even then since in the case of the perception of the jug there is sense-contact, which is absent in the other case, we could never say that both are grasped by perception. We see the ground and remember the jug (which is absent) and thus in the mind rises the notion of non-existence which has no reference at all to visual perception. A man may be sitting in a place where there were no tigers, but he might not then be aware of their non-existence at the time, since he did not think of them, but when later on he is asked in the evening if there were any tigers at the place where he was sitting in the morning, he then thinks and becomes aware of the non-existence of tigers there in the morning, even without perceiving the place and without any operation of the memory of the non-existence of tigers. There is no question of there being any inference in the rise of our notion of non-existence, for it is not preceded by any notion of concomitance of any kind, and neither the ground nor the non-perception of the jug could be regarded as a reason ([email protected]_), for the non-perception of the jug is related to the jug and not to the negation of the jug, and no concomitance is known between the non-perception of the jug and its non-existence, and when the question of the concomitance of non-perception with non-existence is brought in, the same difficulty about the notion of non-existence (_abhava_) which was sought to be explained will recur again. Negation is therefore to be admitted as cognized by a separate and independent process of knowledge. Nyaya however says that the perception of non-existence (e.g. there is no jug here) is a unitary perception of one whole, just as any perception of positive existence (e.g.

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there is a jug on the ground) is. Both the knowledge of the ground as well as the knowledge of the non-existence of the jug arise there by the same kind of action of the visual organ, and there is therefore no reason why the knowledge of the ground should be said to be due to perception, whereas the knowledge of the negation of the jug on the ground should be said to be due to a separate process of knowledge. The non-existence of the jug is taken in the same act as the ground is perceived. The principle that in order to perceive a thing one should have sense-contact with it, applies only to positive existents and not to negation or non-existence. Negation or non-existence can be cognized even without any sense-contact. Non-existence is not a positive substance, and hence there cannot be any question here of sense-contact.

It may be urged that if no sense-contact is required in apprehending negation, one could as well apprehend negation or non-existence of other places which are far away from him.

To this the reply is that to apprehend negation it is necessary that the place where it exists must be perceived. We know a thing and its quality to be different, and yet the quality can only be taken in a.s.sociation with the thing and it is so in this case as well. We can apprehend non-existence only through the apprehension of its locus. In the case when non-existence is said to be apprehended later on it is really no later apprehension of non-existence but a memory of non-existence (e.g. of jug) perceived before along with the perception of the locus of non-existence (e.g. ground). Negation or non-existence (_abhava_) can thus, according to Nyaya, generate its cognition just as any positive existence can do. Negation is not mere negativity or mere vacuous absence, but is what generates the cognition "is not,"

as position (_bhava_) is what generates the cognition "it is."

The Buddhists deny the existence of negation. They hold that when a negation is apprehended, it is apprehended with specific time and s.p.a.ce conditions (e.g. this is not here now); but in spite of such an apprehension, we could never think that negation could thus be a.s.sociated with them in any relation. There is also no relation between the negation and its _pratiyogi_ (thing negated--e.g. jug in the negation of jug), for when there is the pratiyogi there is no negation, and when there is the negation there is no pratiyogi. There is not even the relation of opposition (_virodha_), for we could have admitted it, if

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the negation of the jug existed before and opposed the jug, for how can the negation of the jug oppose the jug, without effecting anything at all? Again, it may be asked whether negation is to be regarded as a positive being or becoming or of the nature of not becoming or non-being. In the first alternative it will be like any other positive existents, and in the second case it will be permanent and eternal, and it cannot be related to this or that particular negation. There are however many kinds of non-perception, e.g. (1) svabhavanupalabdhi (natural non-perception--there is no jug because none is perceived); (2) [email protected] (non-perception of cause--there is no smoke here, since there is no fire); (3) vyapakanupalabdhi (non-perception of the species--there is no pine here, since there is no tree); (4) karyanupalabdhi (non-perception of effects--there are not the causes of smoke here, since there is no smoke); (5) svabhavaviruddhopalabdhi (perception of contradictory natures--there is no cold touch here because of fire); (6) viruddhakaryopalabdhi (perception of contradictory effects--there is no cold touch here because of smoke); (7) virudhavyaptopalabdhi (opposite concomitance--past is not of necessity destructible, since it depends on other causes); (8) karyyaviruddhopalabdhi (opposition of effects--there is not here the causes which can give cold since there is fire); (9) vyapakaviruddhopalabdhi (opposite concomitants--there is no touch of snow here, because of fire); (10) [email protected] (opposite causes--there is no shivering through cold here, since he is near the fire); (11) [email protected] (effects of opposite causes--this place is not occupied by men of shivering sensations for it is full of smoke [Footnote ref 1]).

There is no doubt that in the above ways we speak of negation, but that does not prove that there is any reason for the cognition of negation ([email protected]_). All that we can say is this that there are certain situations which justify the use (_yogyata_) of negative appellations. But this situation or yogyata is positive in character. What we all speak of in ordinary usage as non-perception is of the nature of perception of some sort.

Perception of negation thus does not prove the existence of negation, but only shows that there are certain positive perceptions which are only interpreted in that way. It is the positive perception of the ground where the visible jug is absent that

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[Footnote 1: See _Nyayabindu_, p. 11, and _Nyayamanjari_, pp. 53-7.]

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leads us to speak of having perceived the negation of the jug ([email protected] [email protected] vyavaharayati_) [Footnote ref 1].

The Nyaya reply against this is that the perception of positive existents is as much a fact as the perception of negation, and we have no right to say that the former alone is valid. It is said that the non-perception of jug on the ground is but the perception of the ground without the jug. But is this being without the jug identical with the ground or different? If identical then it is the same as the ground, and we shall expect to have it even when the jug is there. If different then the quarrel is only over the name, for whatever you may call it, it is admitted to be a distinct category. If some difference is noted between the ground with the jug, and the ground without it, then call it "ground, without the jugness" or "the negation of jug," it does not matter much, for a distinct category has anyhow been admitted. Negation is apprehended by perception as much as any positive existent is; the nature of the objects of perception only are different; just as even in the perception of positive sense-objects there are such diversities as colour, taste, etc. The relation of negation with s.p.a.ce and time with which it appears a.s.sociated is the relation that subsists between the qualified and the quality ([email protected] [email protected]@na_). The relation between the negation and its pratiyogi is one of opposition, in the sense that where the one is the other is not. The [email protected] sutra_ (IX. i. 6) seems to take abhava in a similar way as k.u.marila the [email protected] does, though the commentators have tried to explain it away [Footnote ref 2]. In [email protected] the four kinds of negation are enumerated as (1) _pragabhava_ (the negation preceding the production of an object--e.g. of the jug before it is made by the potter); (2) [email protected]_ (the negation following the destruction of an object--as of the jug after it is destroyed by the stroke of a stick); (3) _anyonyabhava_ (mutual negation--e.g. in the cow there is the negation of the horse and

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[Footnote 1: See [email protected]_, pp. 34 ff., and also _Nyayamanjari_, pp. 48-63.]

[Footnote 2 Pras'astapada says that as the production of an effect is the sign of the existence of the cause, so the non-production of it is the sign of its non-existence, S'ridbara in commenting upon it says that the non-preception of a sensible object is the sign ([email protected]_) of its non-existence. But evidently he is not satisfied with the view for he says that non-existence is also directly perceived by the senses (_bhavavad [email protected]_) and that there is an actual sense-contact with non-existence which is the collocating cause of the preception of non-existence ([email protected]'pi [email protected]_), Nyayakandali_, pp. 225-30.]

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in the horse that of the cow); (4) _atyantabhava_ (a negation which always exists--e.g. even when there is a jug here, its negation in other places is not destroyed) [Footnote ref 1].

The necessity of the Acquirement of debating devices for the seeker of Salvation.

It is probable that the Nyaya philosophy arose in an atmosphere of continued disputes and debates; as a consequence of this we find here many terms related to debates which we do not notice in any other system of Indian philosophy. These are _tarka_, [email protected]_, _vada_, _jalpa_, [email protected]@da_, _hetvabhasa_, _chala_, _jati_ and _nigrahasthana_.

Tarka means deliberation on an unknown thing to discern its real nature; it thus consists of seeking reasons in favour of some supposition to the exclusion of other suppositions; it is not inference, but merely an oscillation of the mind to come to a right conclusion. When there is doubt ([email protected]'aya_) about the specific nature of anything we have to take to tarka. [email protected] means the conclusion to which we arrive as a result of tarka. When two opposite parties dispute over their respective theses, such as the doctrines that there is or is not an atman, in which each of them tries to prove his own thesis with reasons, each of the theses is called a _vada_. Jalpa means a dispute in which the disputants give wrangling rejoinders in order to defeat their respective opponents.

A jalpa is called a [email protected]@da_ when it is only a destructive criticism which seeks to refute the opponent's doctrine without seeking to establish or formulate any new doctrine. Hetvabhasas are those which appear as hetus but are really not so. _Nyaya_ sutras enumerate five fallacies (_hetvabhasas_) of the middle (hetu): _savyabhicara_ (erratic), _viruddha_ (contradictory), [email protected]_ (tautology), _saddhyasama_ (unproved reason) and _kalat.i.ta _(inopportune).

Savyabhicara is that where the same reason may prove opposite conclusions (e.g. sound is eternal because it is intangible like the atoms which are eternal, and sound is non-eternal because it is intangible like cognitions which are non-eternal); viruddha is that where the reason opposes the premiss to be proved (e.g. a jug is eternal, because it is produced); [email protected] is that