Indian Logic Part 01

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 22

INTRODUCTION
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seventh to twefth - has still less to do with this vindication goes without saying). Hence it is that even while taking due notice of it much should not be made of the fact that Jayanta's own understanding that the primary concern of Nyāya philosophy is to vindicate the validity of Vedic testimony acts as a running thread throughout Nyāyamañjari in general and its pramāna-part in particular. Even less should be made of Jayanta's further contention that Nyaya philosophy aimed at vindicating the validity of Vedic testimony has been in currency ever since the beginning of creation when God composed Vedas.'. Equally worthy of neglect. is Jayanta's rejoindor-to-an-objection that Aksapada -- the fabled founder of the Nyāya school - could well have acquired the necessary wisdom through performing a penance, worshipping a deity, or studying a text already current.15 For all this simply shows that Jayanta was just incapable of having any historical understanding of how Vedas came to be composed or how his own Nyāya school came into existence and grew.
After making preliminary remarks, of which the most significant ones we have just considered, Jayanta proceeds to offer
mment on the first aphorism of Nyāyasūtra. This aphorism enumerates the sixteen padarthas and declares that a knowledge regarding their essential nature leads to the attainment of moksa. And while commenting on it Jayanta does the following things : (1) argues that even a bare mention of the subject-matter of a text rouses in the reader a curiosity to go through it, (2) frames a one-sentence description of each of the sixteen padārthas, (3) settles grammatical part, and (4) argues why a text aimed at vindicating the validity of Vedic testimony should think it worthwhile to declare that a knowledge regarding the essential nature of the sixteen padārthas in question leads to the attainment of mokşa. Of those the point (4) is alone important and deserves some consideration, for it provides an interesting clue to the working of Jayanta's mind on certain fundamental questions of philosophy. In this connection the formulation of the opponent's obiection is brief but pointed; it runs as follows: "How is the. knowledge regarding the essential nature of the sixteen padārthas.