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OTHER KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE
IN NYAYA AND JAINISM
Upamāna in Nyāya
Upamāna or comparison is the third source of knowledge recognised by Nyāya. Upamāna literally means the knowledge of similarity between two things. It is defined as “the ground of our knowledge of a thing from its similarity to another thing previously well known”. It is that means of valid knowledge by which with the help of an example the relation between name and the object denoted by name is known. It, thus, consists in associating a thing unknown before with its name by virtue of its similarity with some other known thing. It helps in knowing of the relation between a word and its denotation. By it we know that a word denotes a certain class of objects on the basis of some authoritative statement. Knowledge of similarity is the efficient instrument of such assimilative cognition, e. g. A person is ignorant of the exact meaning of the word 'gavayā'. He has learntfrom somebody that a 'gavayā' is similar to a cow; he goes to a forest, sees the animal called 'gavayā' which is similar to a cow; and recollects the information
