[Footnote 2: "Avyabhicârinîmasandigdhârthopalabdhi@m vidadhatî bodhâbodhasvabhâvâ sâmagrî pramâ@nam." Nyâyamañjarî, p. 12. Udyotakara however defined "pramâ@na" as upalabdhihetu (cause of knowledge). This view does not go against Jayanta's view which I have followed, but it emphasizes the side of vyâpâra or movement of the senses, etc. by virtue of which the objects come in contact with them and knowledge is produced. Thus Vâcaspati says: "siddhamindriyâdi, asiddhañca tatsannikar@sâdi vyâpârayannutpâdayan kara@na eva caritârtha@h kar@na@m tvindriyâdi tatsannikar@sâdi vâ nânyatra caritarthamiti sâk@sâdupalabdhâveva phale vyâprîyate." Tâtparya@tîkâ, p. 15. Thus it is the action of the senses as pramâ@na 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. "Pramât@rprameyayo@h. pramâne caritarthatvamacaritarthatvam pramanasya tasmat tadeva phalahetu@h. Pramât@rprameye tu phaloddes'ena prav@rtte iti taddhetû kathañcit." Ibid. p. 16.]
331
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 entity 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 (vis'e@sa@na) in determinate perceptions, the knowledge of li@nga in inference, the seeing of similar things in upamâna, the hearing of sound in s'abda) but also the assemblage 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 pramâ@na.
Nyâya argues that in the Sâ@mkhya view knowledge originates by the transcendent influence of puru@sa 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 puru@sa 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 puru@sa with buddhi is but a mere semblance or appearance or illusion, then the Sâ@mkhya has to admit that there is no real knowledge according to them. All knowledge is false. And since all knowledge is false, the Sâ@mkhyists 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
332
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 Vijñâna vâdins, 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 pramâ@na be defined as prâpa@na (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 pramâ@na. 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 Pramâ@nas of Nyâya.
We know that the Carvâkas admitted perception (pratyak@sa)
alone as the valid source of knowledge. The Buddhists and the
Vais'e@sika admitted two sources, pratyak@sa and inference (anumâna);
Sâ@mkhya added s'abda (testimony) as the third source;
____________________________________________________________________