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[Footnote 1: According to Sâ@mkhya-Yoga a thing is regarded as the unity of the universal and the particular (sâmânyavis'esasamudâyo dravyam, Vyâsabhâsya, III. 44), for there is no other separate entity which is different from them both in which they would inhere as Nyaya holds. Conglomerations can be of two kinds, namely those in which the parts exist at a distance from one another (e.g. a forest), and those in which they exist close together (mrantarâ hi tadavayavâh), and it is this latter combination (ayutasiddhâvayava) which is called a dravya, but here also there is no separate whole distinct from the parts; it is the parts connected in a particular way and having no perceptible space between them that is called a thing or a whole. The Buddhists as Panditâs'oka has shown did not believe in any whole (avayavi), it is the atoms which in connection with one another appeared as a whole occupying space (paramânava eva hi pararûpades'aparihârenotpannâh parasparasahitâ avabhâsamânâ desavitânavanto bhavanti). The whole is thus a mere appearance and not a reality (see Avayavinirâkarana, Six Buddhist Nyâya Tracts). Nyaya however held that the atoms were partless (niravayava} and hence it would be wrong to say that when we see an object we see the atoms. The existence of a whole as different from the parts which belong to it is directly experienced and there is no valid reason against it:
"adustakaranodbhûtamanâvirbhûtabâdhakam asandigdañca vijñânam katham mithyeti kathyate."
Nyâyamañjarî, pp. 550 ff.]
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but the establishment of the existence of wholes refutes the argument that jâti should be denied, because it involves the conception of a whole (class) consisting of many parts (individuals). The class character or jâti exists because it is distinctly perceived by us in the individuals included in any particular class. It is eternal in the sense that it continues to exist in other individuals, even when one of the individuals ceases to exist. When a new individual of that class (e g. cow class) comes into being, a new relation of inherence is generated by which the individual is brought into relation with the class-character existing in other individuals, for inherence (samavâya) according to Prabhâkara is not an eternal entity but an entity which is both produced and not produced according as the thing in which it exists is non-eternal or eternal, and it is not regarded as one as Nyâya holds, but as many, according as there is the infinite number of things in which it exists. When any individual is destroyed, the class-character does not go elsewhere, nor subsist in that individual, nor is itself destroyed, but it is only the inherence of class-character with that individual that ceases to exist. With the destruction of an individual or its production it is a new relation of inherence that is destroyed or produced. But the class-character or jâti has no separate existence apart from the individuals as Nyâya supposes. Apprehension of jâti is essentially the apprehension of the class-character of a thing in relation to other similar things of that class by the perception of the common characteristics. But Prabhâkara would not admit the existence of a highest genus sattâ (being) as acknowledged by Nyâya. He argues that the existence of class-character is apprehended because we find that the individuals of a class possess some common characteristic possessed by all the heterogeneous and disparate things of the world as can give rise to the conception of a separate jâti as sattâ, as demanded by the naiyâyikas. That all things are said to be sat (existing) is more or less a word or a name without the corresponding apprehension of a common quality. Our experience always gives us concrete existing individuals, but we can never experience such a highest genus as pure existence or being, as it has no concrete form which may be perceived. When we speak of a thing as sat, we do not mean that it is possessed of any such class-characters as sattâ (being); what we mean is simply that the individual has its specific existence or svarûpasattâ.
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Thus the Nyâya view of perception as taking only the thing in its pure being apart from qualities, etc, (sanmâtra-vi@sayam pratyak@sa@m) is made untenable by Prabhâkara, as according to him the thing is perceived direct with all its qualities. According to Kumârila however jâti is not something different from the individuals comprehended by it and it is directly perceived. Kumârila's view of jâti is thus similar to that held by Sâ@mkhya, namely that when we look at an individual from one point of view (jâti as identical with the individual), it is the individual that lays its stress upon our consciousness and the notion of jâti becomes latent, but when we look at it from another point of view (the individual as identical with jâti) it is the jâti which presents itself to consciousness, and the aspect as individual becomes latent. The apprehension as jâti or as individual is thus only a matter of different points of view or angles of vision from which we look at a thing. Quite in harmony with the conception of jâti, Kumârila holds that the relation of inherence is not anything which is distinct from the things themselves in which it is supposed to exist, but only a particular aspect or phase of the things themselves (S'lokavârttika, Pratyak@sasûtra, 149, 150, abhedât samavâyo'stu svarûpam dharmadharmi@no@h), Kumârila agrees with Prabhâkara that jâti is perceived by the senses (tatraikabuddhinirgrâhyâ jâtirindriyagocarâ).
It is not out of place to mention that on the evidence of Prabhâkara we find that the category of vis'e@sa admitted by the Ka@nâda school is not accepted as a separate category by the Mîmâ@msâ on the ground that the differentiation of eternal things from one another, for which the category of vis'e@sa is admitted, may very well be effected on the basis of the ordinary qualities of these things. The quality of p@rthaktva or specific differences in atoms, as inferred by the difference of things they constitute, can very well serve the purposes of vis'e@sa.
The nature of knowledge.