Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 001180
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 328
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 15 MB

Page 154

KNOWLEDGE
either from verbal testimony (authority) or from a logical ground (inference) known to be necessarily concomitant with a fact, on the identical ground of unfailing correspondence with the fact? Hence, non-perceptual cognition is as valid as perceptual cognition.
The Vaiseṣikas as well as the Sankhya thinkers contend that there are three means of knowledge, viz., perception, inference and authority. The Naiyāyikas accept analogy in addition to the three. The Prabhākaras accept the four and add implication as the fifth. The followers of Bhaṭṭa (Kumārila) accept negation as an additional means and thus assert six such means in all. All these means of valid knowledge except negation are included in the perceptual and non-perceptual cognitions accepted by the Jainas. As regards negation, it is not different from perception. Since reality partakes of the nature of both being and non-being, negation cannot have an object of its own. As a matter of fact, reality is made up of both being and non-being as its constitutive elements, since it has being in respect of its own nature and non-being in respect of the nature of another. It is evident that a perceptual cognition determines, by way of affirmation and negation, its object in the following way: When we say that the jar is not on the ground, we simply mean by it the perception of a surface of the ground and not a perception of the jar. The surface of the ground itself is the negation of the jar. The experience of negation is not additional which compels us to admit an independent means of cognition in the form of negation or non-existence. The position is as follows:
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'A positive real that is determined as 'this is exclusively of such and such a character' is not capable of being understood without the concomitant cognisance of the negation of what is different from it."
1. Śloka-vārtika: Abhāva, 15.