Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 49

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INDIAN LOGIC
. reason why memory is not a case of cognition, never being a case
of noticing a hitherto uncognized objective feature.
After having thus disposed of the Mimāṁsā definition of pramāna Jayanta once more grapples with an aspect of the Buddhist definition. Thus the Buddhist defines valid cognition as that cognition which receives confirmation in practice, e.g. if a cognition identifies an object as x and if in subsequent practice this object is found to behave as x then this cognition is valid cognition. By way of clarification it is added that a cogoition can be valid cognition even in case relevant practice is not actually undertaken, for the necessary thing is that this cognition should receive confirmation in case such practice is actually undertaken. 6° All this seems sound commonsense and yet Jayanta takes exception to it because he feels that the Buddhist in view of his advocacy of momentarism and all that has no right to say all this. The difficulty is that the Buddhist's case crucially depends on the consideration whether a cogaition identifies its object -rightly or otherwise, but he is also of the view that all identification of an object, being a task performed by thought, is somehow false of this object; and against thought as thus understood is pitted perception - that is, bare sensory experience - which is supposed to reveal an object in all its true particularity. As a result, 'his explanation of how perception and inference, the two types of valid cognition admitted by him, manage to be true of their respective objects is extremely cumbersome; this becomes at once clear from Jayanta's presentation which is fairly trustworthy. According to this explanation what a perception cognizes now is not what is an object of practice later on (for an object is necessarily monentary) but the two belong to the same 'series' which might be identified by thought rightly or otherwise, in the former case this identification being confirmed in subsequent practice; again, what an inference cognizes is not at all something being perceived but something identified by thought, but this identification can be possibly right in case the thing identified stands appropriately related to something that is being perceived.60 Against this explanation, Jayanta's simple objection is that if the identification of an object on the