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196
Madhva Logic
[CH. So far Vyāsa-tirtha has been using the word tarka in the accepted Nyāya sense and, using it in that sense, he has been showing that the removal of doubts is not indispensable for the formation of the notion of concomitance. Tarka consists according to him, however, in the necessary awakening of the knowledge of absence of the reason owing to absence of the consequence; taken from this point of view, it becomes identical with inference (anumāna). Jaya-tirtha also says in his Pramāņa-paddhati that tarka means the necessary assumption of something else (consequence), when a particular character or entity (reason) is perceived or taken for granted (kasyacid dharmasyāngīkare'rthāntarasyāpādanam tarkaḥ)". Granted that there is no fire in the hill, it must necessarily be admitted that there is no smoke in it; this is tarka and this is also inference. Tarka is thus the process by which the assumption of one hypothesis naturally forces the conclusion as true. This is therefore a pramāna, or valid source of knowledge, and should not be considered as either doubt or false knowledge, as some Nyāya writers did, or, as other Nyāya writers considered it to be, different from both doubt and decision (nirnaya). Thus according to Vyāsa-tīrtha tarka has a twofold function, one as the dispeller of doubts and a help to other pramānas, and the other as inference. The main point that Vyāsa-tīrtha urges against Udayana (who holds the function of tarka to be merely the removal of undesirable assumptions) and against Vardhamāna (who holds that the function of tarka is merely the removal of doubt of the absence of the consequence) is that, if tarka does not take account of the material discrepancy or impossibility of facts involved in the assumption of the absence of the consequence (fire) when the smoke is present, then even the doubts or undesirable assumptions will not be removed; and, if it does take account thereof, then it yields new knowledge, is identical with inference, and is a pramāna itself3. Tarka may be treated as a negative inference, e.g., "had it been
1 Pramāna-paddhati, p. 36 a. manmate tu angikstena sādhyābhāvena saha anangikytasya sādhanābhāvasya vyāpakatva-pramā vā sādhyābhāvāngikāranimittaka-sādhanābhāvasyāngikartavyatva-pramā vā tarky'ate' nena iti vyutpattyä tarkah. Tarka-tandava (MS., p. 78).
2 parvato nirdhūmatvenāngikartavyah niragnikatvena angiktatvād hradavat ity anumānam eva tarkah. Ibid. p. 84.
3 kim ca para-mate tarkasya kim vişaya-parisodhane upayogah kim Udayanarityā anista-prasañjanatvamātrena upayogah, kim vā Varddhamānādi-rityā sādhyābhāva-sandeha-nivarttanena. Ibid. p. 92.
