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 218

CONCLUSION
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sentence as distinguished from subjective and transcendental interpretation of it. It rejects the view that sentence refers to ideas in their non-relational character as according to Nyāya realism existence of external object is real to which a sentence refers. According to Jainas, a sentence is an independent aggregate of words and it is partly different and partly non-different from the words from which it is made. A sentence is collection of words which are mutually dependent. It is not dependent on other words in another
sentence.
The thing to be noted in Nyāya and Jaina account of the problem of meaning is that words cannot mean without referring to universals. Both Nyāya and Jainism when they point out that words mean some referends contravene the view that words cannot express the reality as it is. The deeper significance of verbal knowledge in Jainism must be recognised when they assert that words are only expressive of meanings and not that they produce meaning which is rooted in the nature of things in reality.
In addition to the above means of knowledge, Jainism recognises some other kinds of knowledge like (i) Inductive reasoning or tarka (ii) Pratyabhijñā or conception (iii) recollection or Smrti.
i. Inductive Reasoning: It is knowledge of universal concommitance based on facts of experience. Nyāya does not regard tarka as a source of knowledge. It is simply an aid to means of knowledge. It facilitates the operation of a means of knowledge but does not itself act as a means of knowledge. It rather helps to resolve indecisiveness in case of alternative possibilities. Jaina view seems to be more reasonable when they point out that non-recognition of it as