Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 92

PRAMANA ARTHĀPATTI AND ABHAVA
83
many aspects of Wie jar's nature as revealed by thought. However, the Buddhist also somehow distinguish between a thing's positive feature of the form of quality, action etc. and its negative feature of the form of absence' and suggests that the latter is even less independent than the former; it is this distinction that Jayanta doggedly refuses to grant. Thus the Buddhist submits that the cognition of 'absence' is a mere thought-born cognition, his point being that it is not a cognition rooted in a perception (i. e. a physical encounter with things real); Jayanta retorts that this cognition arises in the wake of perception exactly as does a positive type of thought-born cognition. 4 2 The Buddhist seeks to wriggle out of the difficulty by suggesting that a thought-born cognition is after all not of the form of pramāņa; Jayanta reminds him that on the latter's own showing a perception is pramāņa precisely to the extent that the concerned post-perceptual thought is authentic, Jayanta's point being that this consideration applies irrespective of whether the thought concerned is positive or negative. 4 3 The Buddhist pleads that acting in accordance with a positive thought one gets at a real positive thing; Jayanta retorts that acting in accordance with negative thought one gets at a real 'absence', particularly emphasizing that, on the Buddhist's own showing 'to be r itself means 'not to be not-x'. 44 In this connection Jayanta quotes several instances where an 'absence' is of practical significance in our everyday life, his point being that it will not do to dismiss absence as a phenomenon of no consequence. 4 5 It can easily be seen that the Buddhist is denying that an 'absence' is an independent thing, he is admitting that it is an aspect of the nature of an independent thing. Now for him it is the very definiton of an independent real thing that it produces perceptual cognition concerning itself, and so he argues that an 'absence' is not something independent real because it does not produce perce. ptual cognition concerning itself.48 To this Jayanta first replies that since the Buddhist's momentarism would not allow that a thing should become object of a perceptual cognition through producing this cognition, the latter can only say that this thing somehow becomes object of this cognition, something that can be said about an 'absence as about a positive thing; and then he goes on