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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408
NYAYA THICORY OF KNOWLEDGE
this is no good ground for denying the correspondence between memory and its object. When we remember an object, we are aware of representing it as no longer present or with its old conditions as now extinct. The object is therefore faithfully represented in memory. It follows from this that memory is the true knowledge of an object.' We may add also that memory is a presentative knowledge (anubhava), since it is based on an objective order of things in the world. As we have already seen, anubhava or presentative knowledge is the cognition of what is objective (tattva) as distinguished from the false or the subjective (iropita). In presentative knowledge the object need not be directly given as in perception, for that will exclude inference, comparison and testimony from the field of anubhavu or presentative knowledge. All these, however, are recognised by the Naiyāyikas as forms of presentative knowledge. What is common to all these recognised forms of presentative knowledge is not that they give us an immediate knowledge of some object, but that they refer, either directly or indirectly, to an objective fact or an objective order of facts. In this sense smộti or memory is as good a presentative knowledge as any other recognised by the Nyāya or any other school of Indian pbilosopby. The fact that an object is past is as objective as the present existence of another. - Hence inemory as the knowledge of the past as past is a true presentative knowledge (yathāithānubhava) To explain such knowledge of the past we have to accept smrti or memory as a separate source of knowledge (prumāņa).
1 Sortirapi mädäntarameva, erthanıácayahetuträt, anubhavspåratentryannaivam ut cet, da, utpattipäratantryassa pramāṇāntarasāmyat Adbikaparı pramânatvät, anyatbă tadvyavastbipopapatteh, tatrávacchinath hi emrtirarthain. akalayatı, fi ca yadı pūrvānubhavasyäpi gocarah, tadá tatrápi tadityallokbab syst... na cet smptireva taträna pekçeti mánat, Nyāyalilāvati, pp 67-68
3 Cf. H. H. Price, Perception, p 11: "The past 16 as much a part of the real world as the present, and quite to interesting"