Comparative Study of Indian Science

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: C S Mallinath

Page 51

between them is universal, as in the case of Fire and Smoke. In such cases, we have Vishama-vyapti.
Vyapti is thus · inductive generalisation and the orthodox logicians of India (as well as the Jainas) beld Vyapti to be a real relationship between the substances, implied by the Sadhya and the Hetu and not merely an arithmetical sumtotal of the particular facts of experience.
The philosophers of the Buddhist school deny the validity of Uha and inductive generalisations. With them, the Universal is a name and the essentiality, underlying the varied manifestations of a thing is a nonexistence and unreality. If then there are no Essences and no Universals, how is a relation possible between Essence and Essence and Universal and Universal ? The Buddhist theory is thus not very dissimilar to the position of the extreme empiricist who contends that it is the particulars of experience that have any reality for us and that the inductive truths are not demonstrably true and that these are taken on trust as it were. The theory of the Charvakas or the sophists also with regard to Induction is in agreement with that of the Buddhists.
Now, if there can be no valid Induction i.e., if it is either a summation of actual facts of experience or but a half truth, it is clear that the process of Anumana or Deductive Reasoning becomes equally impossible and