Studies in Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 001580
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1981
Total Pages: 352
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Epistemology, & Religion
File Size: 21 MB

Page 158

Memory
131
mnemonic) experience may be in accord with the object. [Read ‘yathārthānubhava" for "yathānubhava'']. If, however, a cognition is in accord with the object and we have a memory--experience of the same object, then such memory-experience is said to be in accord with the object. Similarly, if the (prior) cognition is not in accord with the object, the exact (undistorted) remembering of it is also not so. For example, when a man has fled after cognizing a rope as a snake, he remembers it as a snake. Therefore the memory-experience has 'veracity' ( the property of being in accord with the object) only to the extent of its being borrowed from a prior veracious cognitive experience; it is not natural ( = ā jānika) to memory. This (unnaturalness of veracity with regard to memory) is what is expressed as (memory's) 'dependence upon another', and this has been confused by some philosophers who were lazy to make the point explicit (I think. this is an oblique reference to Vācaspati by Udayana).”
Udayana, in fact, has given two arguments in the above. First, he has argued that memory-experience cannot be said to be in accord with the object in the strictest sense in the way an ordinary (non-mnemonic) cognitive awareness can be. Next, he has shown, in recognition of the point that we may use such expressions as 'true memory', that the memory-experience can have accord with the object in a less strict sense, but such a property is only a transferred epithet from the original non-mnemonic past awareness in which the present memory is grounded.
What then is the sense in which the Jaina philosophers have argued that memory-experience is to be called a pram a true cognitive event? Does it simply mean that the Jaina philosophers use the term "pramā” in a less strict sense ? It is tempting to say so, but I will suggest another way to understand the problem. If I had seen the pot to be dark when it was unbaked and now, when it is red after being baked, I remember truly that it was dark, the claim of the Jainas