A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1

by Surendranath Dasgupta

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on the strength of the experience of the similarity of the unknown animal to a known one. The naiyâyikas 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 association of the name in accordance with the perception of similarity and the instruction received is a separate act and is called upamâna [Footnote ref 1].

S'abda-pramâ@na 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 Îs'vara himself. The Vedas give us right knowledge not of itself, but because they came out as the utterances of the infallible Îs'vara. The Vais'e@sikas did not admit s'abda as a separate pramâ@na, 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 Vais'e@sika sûtras, which tacitly admit the validity of the scriptures on its own authority. But anyhow this was how Vais'e@sika was interpreted in later times.

Negation in Nyâya-Vais'e@sika.

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

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[Footnote 1: See Nyâyamañjarî on upamâna. The oldest Nyâya view was that the instruction given by the forester by virtue of which the association of the name "wild ox" to the strange animal was possible was itself "upamâna." When Pras'astapâda held that upamâna should be treated as a case of testimony (âptavacana), he had probably this interpretation in view. But Udyotakara and Vâcaspati hold that it was not by the instruction alone of the forester that the association 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 association called upamâna. What Vâtsyâya@na meant is not very clear, but Di@nnâga supposes that according to him the result of upamâna was the knowledge of similarity or the knowledge of a thing having similarity. Vâcaspati of course holds that he has correctly interpreted Vâtsyâya@na's intention. It is however definite that upamâna means the associating of a name to a new object (samâkhyâsambandhapratipattirupamânârtha@h, Vâtsyâya@na). Jayanta points out that it is the preception of similarity which directly leads to the association of the name and hence the instruction of the forester cannot be regarded as the direct cause and consequently it cannot be classed under testimony (s'abda). See Pras'astapâda and Nyâyakandalî, pp. 220-22, Vâtsyâya@na, Udyotakara, Vâcaspati and Jayanta on Upamâna.]

[Footnote 2: See Kumârila's treatment of abhâva in the S'lokavârttika, pp. 473-492.]

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and his followers, whose philosophy we shall deal with in the next chapter, hold that negation (abhâva) appears as an intuition (mânam) with reference to the object negated where there are no means of ordinary cognition (pramâ@na) 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 (li@nga), 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 (abhâva) 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. Nyâya 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.