Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 001545
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sukhlal Sanghavi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1977
Total Pages: 128
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 9 MB

Page 39

Capacity for Valid Cognition
31
thing beyond that element. It appears that the answer to this question was found out by these philosophers with the help of the means-of-valid-cog. nition called inference. For when the experience of pleasure, pain, etc. as also numerous other specialities of everyday life failed to receive explanation
is of a physical element the philosophers in question posited a non-physical conscious element that seems probable. Thus with the extension of the capacity of the means-of-valid-cognition called inference there came to be established two elements—a physical one and a conscious one; but along with that a new question also came to the fore.
The question was that even if a subtle physical element or a conscious one be posited with the help of inference whether there obtains no way so as to make possible the perception of such subtie supra-sensuous elements. The question was not easy to answer but a number of extra-ordinary personages did pursue it. In this connection they arrived at the path of mental concentration ( =yoga ). Thus they realized that when the internalorgan chiefly follows sense-organs - that is, is chiefly oriented outwardsthere acquires development of its just one capacity but that when on being oriented inwards it concentrates itself in a special manner another variety of its capacity opens up. On the basis of experience they also saw that when the impressions left behind in an internal-organ are got rid of its capacity blossoms forth in a particularly strong form. Such heroes of experimentation, basing themselves on their yogic experience, made the discovery of a new means-of-valid-cogoition. This means-of-valid-cognition is neither senseperception nor inference-based-on--an-invariable-concomitance; at the same time, it was realized by the philosophers in question that this new means-ofvalid-cognition can take cognizance of subtle supra-sensuous entities. Hence they submitted that sense-perception and inference are not the only meansof-valid-cognition but that there also lies beyond them supra-sensuous perception-called ārșa jñāna or stambharā prajñā. 10 Such supra-sensuous perception lies at the root of the means-of-valid-cognition called scriptural testimony. Thus peception, inference and scriptural testimony--these three are the basic means-of-valid-cognition; of these three, scriptural testimony in its basic sense can be deemed to be supreme inasmuch as it takes within its purview the respective objects of sense-preception and inference as well.
The basic cause responsible for there being a multiplicity of philosophical trends are just these three means-of-valid-cognition, but in the field of philosophical speculation there have also been posited a larger or a fewer
10
Yogasūtra, 1.48-9