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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Slokavārtika-a study
42). For example, a word can be said to be an agent or an instrument in relation to the act of cognizing its meaning, but if the words 'cognition' and 'false' are without an object that is to say, without a meaning there can be no thesis in the form 'all cognition is false, (v. 43-44). The idealist might say that he will assign to the word 'cognition whatever meaning is sanctioned by popular usage; but Kumarila reminds him that in popular usage a cognition is necessarily a cognition of an object (v. 45). Kumarila goes on to add that if the word 'cognition' means something that lacks an object the Mimamsaka debater will disallow its employment, if it means something that has an object the idealist debater will do so (v. 46); a similar dilemma will arise in case one party regards cognition as a quality of soul while the other party regards it as an independent entity (v. 47). Kumārila concedes that there might be cases when a-word experessing the locus of an inference is such that its very meaning is under dispute, but his point is that such a plea is not open to the idealist who would have us believe that a word is without an object, that is, without a meaning (v. 48).
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Then Kumarila undertakes a very long examination of what acts as probandum in the idealist inferance-viz. 'lack-of-object (=falsity, Skt. niralambanata). Kumārila begins by arguing that if 'lack-of-object means lack of all object' whatsoever then a cognition will not have lack of object even according to the idealist himself, for the latter is of the view that a cognition necessarily has itself for its object (v. 49); and if 'lack-of-object' means 'lack of some object or other then all cognition will have 'lack of object' even according to Kumärila, for he too says that 'cognition of X' does not have a not-X for its object (v. 50). The idealist might submit that a cognition lacks an object in the sense that the thing whose form this cognition assumes is not grasped; Kumarila understands him to mean that the form which a cognition assumes is not grasped and then objects that the idealist who believes that a cognition really assumes this form or that and really grasps itself has no right to say that this form is not grasped (v. 51). And even granting that the idealist means to say that the external thing whose form a cognition assumes is not grasped. Kumārila is ready to endorse him in the sense that an external object is not grasped under the conscious recognition that it is an external object (v. 52); but beyond this Kumärila would not go. For if the idealist mean to say that an external thing is not grasped even under the conscious recognition that it is this thing or that, then Kumārila will repudiate him on the ground that in cognition of X' X is always recognized as this thing or that (v. 53). The idealist points out that in the illusory cognition of two moons two moons are not grasped as two moons; Kumarila retorts that even in an illusory cognition certan real things are grasped as real things but that it is called object-less in the sense that these things are not what a sense-organ has come in contact with (vv. 53-54). And he goes on to add that it is rather the idealist who posits no real external objects who should find it impossible to determine the sense