Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 58

PRAMĀNA ARTHĀPATTI AND ABHĀVA
as to how pleasure, pain etc. are enjoyed but we have already opined that the Kumarilite position that a cognition is cognized by a subsequent cognition not by way of perception but by way of implication (or even inference) makes better sense than Jayanta's present position. After thus rejecting what the Buddhist calls the perceptual evidence for a twofold division of objects-tobe-cognized, Jayanta off-hand dismisses the inferential evidence that follows; for he rightly notes that the latter offers nothing new18. Lastly, Jayanta argues that even if the objects-to-be-cog. nized are of two types it is not necessary that each type must be exclusively cognized through just one type of pramāņa; he is thus preparing the ground for his owa position that there are all sorts of objects-to-be-cognized and all sorts of pramānas to cognize them, a position which has its own difficulties 19.
The point raised last of all · Jayanta reopens in a somewhat new context. Thus the Buddhist bas'argued that what constitutes an object of perception cannot also constitute an object of inference; Jayanta retort that all inference requires the establishment of a relation of invariable concomitance between the probans and the probandum and unless that is done with the help of perception an infinite regress must be tire result, his point being that logic demands that the probans and the probandum must be a possible object of perception as well as inference. 20 The Buddhist virtually concedes Jayanta's point by attributing the epithet 'perception - like to the thought that arises in the wake of perception and identifies as belonging to this class or that the object that was earlier perceived (in brief, post-perceptual thought); thus instead of saying, as Jayanta would, that the probans and the probandum must at some time be made an object of perception, the Buddhist says that they must at some time be made an object of post-perceptual thought (which is something perception-like.)?1 However, the real difficulty lies not with the Buddhist's nomenclature but with his understanding that all thought is somehow false of things real, a difficulty which Jayanta exploits to the full. Thus the Buddhist was bound to say that even a true post