Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

SR No.: 011115
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S C Chateerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1939
Total Pages: 440
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

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we know the existence of some contact of the clouds with high winds which prevent rainfall. It is on account of the obstruction offered by high winds that rain drops do not fall to the ground, as they otherwise would by the force of gravity. The Naiyayikas hold that this argument from nonexistence to existence is really a form of inference, because it is based on a uniform relation of concomitance between two opposite or contradictory things. Two contradictory objects are so related to one another that the existence of the one implies the non-existence of the other and vice versa. Hence abhäva or non-existence as a source of knowledge is to be included within inference. The Vaiseṣikas also reduce abhāva to inference According to them, the non-existence of the effect indicates the non-existence of the cause, just as its existence indicates the existence of the cause. Hence abhāva or non-existence gives us the knowledge of that which is uniformly related to it, like the linga or the middle term of an inference. The argument based on abhāva or non-existence is thus really a kind of anumāna or inference. 2
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OTHER SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
Later Naiyayikas take abhāva to mean the absence of cognition and not the relation of contrast or opposition between two things." In this sense abhāva coincides with anupalabdhi or non-cognition. According to the Bhaṭṭa Mimāmsā and the Advaita Vedanta, anupalabdhi is an independent pramāņa or source of knowledge. It is the unique cause of such presentative knowledge of nonexistence as is not due to inference or any other kind of knowledge. Thus the non-existence of a jar on the table which I see before me is known from the absence of its cogni
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1 Ibid
2 NK, p. 225; VS, 9.2.1.
3 TB., p 15, N.L, p. 57
♦ Jñānakaraṇā;anyābhāvānubhavāsādhāraṇakāraņamanupalabdhirupaṁ pramāņam, VP., Ch. VI.
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