Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

SR No.: 522601
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur
Publication Year: 1971
Total Pages: 414
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin, & India
File Size: 9 MB

Page 84

SYLLOGISTIC INFERENGE
73
thesis or any another cognitive organ. Your contention would make the recognition of this necessary relation set forth in the minor premise e. g., 'The hill is possessed of smoke', unnecessarily redundant. If you rejoin, this is necessary for the concrete functioning of the competency of the probans without which the probandum will not be understood as a predicate of the minor term (the logical subject), then the statement of the thesis etc.' will not be dispensed with since they are necessary for the enlightenment of a particular set of persons as demonstrated by us before. So 'the thesis etc. are also necessary factors of argument just like the probans, as it has been shown that the statement of the probans requires the services of such factors in particular situ. ations. The author had foreseen all these consequences and so states that syllogistic argument consists of the thesis etc.'
Now the author sets forth the definition of the thesis (pakşa)2 as follows:
Text sādhyabhyupagamaḥ pakṣaḥ pratyakşādyanira krtaḥ / tatprayoga ’tra kartavyo hetorgocaradipakaḥ ||
Translation “The thesis consists in the acknowledgement of the probandum as a predicate of the subject (of the proposition to be proved as a theorem) which is not contradicted by the perception and the like. The statement of it (the thesis) should be made since it shows the locus of the probans.” ... (XIV)
Elucidation A syllogistic argument has been defined in verse xiii as consisting of thesis (pakşa) and the rest. Now the author gives the definition of thesis (pakşa) for clear and unequivocal conception of it in the verse under consideration. Pakşa (thesis) is of the nature of the geometrical
1. Dignāga has also adopted, the same procedure. Cf. Nyāyapraveśa, p. 1:
tatra pakşādivacanām sādhanam, pakşahetu-dystāntayacanair hi praśni
kānām apratito 'Ith aḥ pratipādyata iti. 2. The word paksa defined as the thesis which asserts the proposition to
be proved just like the preliminary proposition in the Euclid's theorem, e. 8., The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles'. This is stated as a theorem to be proved. The thesis (pakşa) of Indian Nyāya is equally a tentative assertion which is proved in the conclusion by means of the intermediate propositions. The word paksa is aleo used to denote the subject (the minor term) which forms a part of it by way of syncedoche.