Nyaya And Jaina Epistemology

SR No.: 023167
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kokila H Shah
Publisher: Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 248
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 106

COMMON SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE....
89
Even Nyāya position is that, no doubt, words mean universal but the Jaina view is that universals are inherent only in things. Similarly, a word refers to individual and image. A word, no doubt, refers to an individual but an individual participates into universal without which it cannot exist and it refers to an image of things.
An examination of the problem of verbal knowledge shows though many schools of Indian philosophy recognize verbal testimony as an independent source of valid knowledge, there is difference of opinion among them as to the nature of it. But we find striking similarity between the Jainas and the Naiyāyikās regarding some of its aspects. Both take sabda as a statement of a perfectly reliable person. According to both of them verbal testimony as a means of valid knowledge is a sentence which is spoken or written by a trustworthy person or statement of some authority. The other schools take sabda as a sentence whose import is not contradicted. Both Jainism and Nyaya classify sabda or testimony into ordinary and extraordinary. Jainas and Naiyāyikās agree in maintaining that ordinary testimony consists in words of ordinary reliable persons. But Jainas maintain that extraordinary testimony consists in the words of a liberated self of extraordinary powers and relates to supersensible realities. It is knowledge derived from scriptures, no doubt, but the Jaina definition of scripture points to the fact that scripture cannot be verbal if it does not embody the word of a particular person. It cannot be impersonal nor self-evidently valid. In Nyāya of course, scriptural testimony is neither impersonal nor self-evidently valid but it depends on divine revelation. In Jainism, it depends on perfect, omniscient self. Nyāya holds that scriptures are not man-made but created by God but Jainism