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ON THE PROBLEMS OF KNOWLEDGE
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As against this none of those who repudiated inomentarism and believed in the reality of the substance could rule out the possibility of the co-operation of the different organs of knowledge in the cognition of one and the same object (pramana -sanplaya). Thus Gautama, the author of the Nyāyasūtra, seems to concede the possibility of pramāna-samplava. This is suggested by the term pramanatah used in the sūtra pramanatuś ca arthapratipatteh. 7, Vātsyāyana clearly states that there are objects that could be grasped by all the organs of knowledge while there are other objects that could be grasped by some one organ only. As instances of the objects of the first type are cited Atman and fire; they are cognised by the verbal authority, inference and perception successively. Then he gives instances of the objects in whose case only one organ can operate. The knowledge of Heaven could be acquired through verbal testimony only; the knowledge of clouds, after having heard the rumbling sound could be had through inference only and the knowledge of one's own hand could be had through perception only. 8° Uddyotakara too accepts both pramāna-vyavastha and pramana-samplava. To give an illustration, he says that only visual sense organ grasps the quality colour, only auditory sense organ grasps the quality sound and so on yet all the sense-organs grasp the Universal Being and the Universal Quality: Again he observes that though only visual sense organ cognises colour and only tactual organ cognises touch, yet both these organs cognise the solid body pot. 81
Someone might urge that if all the organs were to grasp one and the same object then there would be no need of all these organs except one, Uddyotakara replies that though all organs cooperate in the cognition of one and the same object, they grasp this object differently, that is, in their own way; and what is to be borne in mind is that even if all the organs of knowledge operate in the cognition of the same object not one of them does so with reference to that entire object. 89
The Jainas too accept both pramāna-samplava and pramānaviplava. They accept momentarism from the point of view of modes. From this point of view a thing changes perpetually and hence no source of knowledge grasps what is grapsed by another
