Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 42

PRAMANA ARTHĀPATTI AND ABHĀVA
rice bas become cooked rice, similarly the cognitive operation is itself not something observable and is to be inferred from the fact that a hitherto uncognized object has become a cognized object. The Kumārilite thesis on operation in general and cognitive operation in particular Jayanta suspects to be a product of fear against Buddhist idealism. 33 Thus beginning with the position that an. object is cognized, not directly but by way of cognizing a cognition that bears the form of this object the Buddhist ended with the position that there is no object apart from cognition; to Jayanta it seems that the Kumärilite fondly seeks to avoid such a degradation by maintaining that a cognition is cognized not directly but by way of drawing an inference from the fact that the object concerned has become a cognized object (it is a fond endeavour because an object cannot be cognized as something cognized unless the cognition concerned is already cognized). Jayanta. perhaps correctly fathoms the psychological motivation of the Kumārilite, but logically the latter's position seems to be more tenable. Thus as was noted above, as a result of cognizing an object the cognizer concerned is in a position to deal with this object better than before; it is this property of an object that is to be called cognize dness atid the 'cognition concerned is cognized only to the extent this property is cognized. This is the logical crux of the Kumarilite contention that a cognition is cognized not by way of perception but by way of drawing an inference from object-cognizedness. The Nyāya authors, on the other hand, believe that a cognition can be perceived as soon as it is born in the form of a quality of soul, just as pleasure, pain etc. can be thus perceived; but such an instantaneous inspection of a cognition can at the most consist in the bare realization that this cognition has taken place, a realization that is no cognition of this cognition in any worthwhile sense. Be that as it may, the present contest is between the Kumārilite position that cognition is an unobservable operation undertaken by the concerned causal aggregate with a view to producing the property cognizedness in the object concerned and the Nyāya position that it is
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