Slokavartika a Study

SR No.: 001133
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K K Dixit, Nagin J Shah, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1983
Total Pages: 132
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Nyay, Tattvartha Sutra, & Tattvarth
File Size: 11 MB

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Šlokavārtika—a study
forest-dweller that a gavaya is like a cow goes to the forest, comes across a gavaya and finds it to be similar to a cow (v. 6). But on his showing analogy as thus understood is but a case of perception and a case of memory put together, gavaya being an object of perception and its similaritywith-a-cow learot earlier being an object of memory (vv. 7-10. Kumārila particularly objects that with the present understanding of analogy it becomes difficult to see why the townsman should be told by the forest-dweller that a gavaya is like a cow, for even without being told so the former should be in a position to notice that a gava ya is like a cow (vv. 10-11). The Nyāya logician submits that upless the , townsman was earlier told by the forest-dweller that a gava ya is like a cow the former even while noticing that a gavaya is like a cow should not be in a position to make out that such an entity is what th: word 'gavaya stands for (v. 12). Kumārila. retorts that it is immaterial whether the townsman makes out or does not that the entity being perceived by him is what the word 'gavayı' stands for, for even in case he was earlier told by the forest-dweller that a gavaya is like a cow it was at that very time and not at the time of the actual perception of a gavaya that he learnt what the word 'gavaya' stands for the reason being that the denotative capacity of a word is something supersensuous and so not something that can be learnt earlier and recognized later on) (vv. 12-14). Ku nārila admits that the object of analogical cognition has to be a thing characterized by similarity but he is dissatisfied with the way the Nyāya logiciar conceives this object (v. 15). However, before formulating an alternative concept of it Kumārila thinks it necessary to offer a definition of 'similarity' and defend it against possible objections (vv. 18-35). This part of his argumentation is particularly noteworthy because of the light it throws on the way his mind works on the question of a "universal'. On Kumārila's showng two objects are similar when they are a seat of two different universals' and yet have some number of component parts in common (v. 18). The implication is that two objects are not just similar but identical when they have not just some but all of component parts in commonthis being the simple meaning of these objects being a seat of the same 'universal'. To put it symbolically X and Y are ideatical. i. e. are a seat of the same 'universal when a, b, c, d happen to be the total set of component parts possessed by X as well as Y; X and W are similar when some (at least one) from among X's component parts a, b, c, d also happen to be the component parts of W. So for Kumarila two seats of the same 'universal' are not just similar but identical, e. g. two cows are not just similar but identical. That is why when he says that two objects have a component part in common what he means is that this component part as existing in one of them and the same as existing in the other are a seat of one and the same universal, e. g. two cows have a horn in common because a hora of one cow and that of the other are a seat of the same 'universal' horn-aess, so also do a cow and a gavaya have a horn in common because a horn of a cow and that of a gavaya