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144 First Steps to Jainism
and prameya provoked answers from the author of the Nyayadarsana, and also Vātsyāyana, the author of the Nyāyabhāśya, which take resort to the non-absolutistic method for refuting the Madhyamika philosopher's attacks. Nāgārjuna's argument that the concepts of pramāņa and prameya, being interdependent, cannot establish themselves, is countered by pointing out that there is no logical inconsistency in viewing the same entity both as pramāņa and paaneya. The Nyayadarsana, II. 1.16, cites the example of a measure (tula) which is usually employed to measure other things, but on occasion it is itself measured by another article of a standard weight. So there is nothing absurd if the same object is concieved as both pramāņa and prameya. Vatsyāyana, in this connection, gives a very lucid exposition of the nomenclature of pramāṇa, prameya, pramata and pramiti. The atman (self, soul) is called a prameya beacuse of its being an abject of knowledge, but it is also a pramātā because of its being the subject exercising the function of knowing; the intellect qua the instrument of commition is a pramāna, (while as an object of cognition it is a prameya) and it is simply a pramiti when it is exercising none of the functions of 'knowing' or 'being known' (ātmā tāvad upalabdhiviśayśayatvāt prameye paripathitaḥ, uplabdhau svātantryāt pramātā; buddhir upalabdhisādhanatvāt pramāņam, upalabdhiviśayatvāt prameyam; ubhayābhāvāt tu pramitih). The expression vibhajya vacaniyah is also found in the Bhasya on II. 1.19 There is thus unambiguously a trend of Nyaya thought, which takes the school a great way towards the non-absolutistic approach of the Jainas. It is interesting to note in this connection that Udayana, in his Atmatattvaviveka (pp. 530-1 Bibliotheca Indica Calcutta, 1939), imagines a simpleton who sees, for the first time in his life, a tusker at the gate of a royal palace and conjectures; Is it a mass of darkness eating white radish, or a piece of cloud pouring out white cranes and roaring, or the proverbial benign friend waiting at the royal gate, or the shadow of what is lying down on the ground, and counters his conjectures by arguments which are equally fanciful; another simpleton makes appearance at this point and persuades him of the futility of all thought about the nature of things. Udayana identifies the Buddhist absolutists with these simpletons and rejects their speculations as pure imaginations unworthy of respectable treatment. One should neither go astray in imagination and wishful thinking, nor give up in despair all attempts at discovering the full truth from whatever partial glimpses of it one may be able to get. The Jaina philosopher is in perfect agreeFor Private & Personal Use Only
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