Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 94

PRAMĀŅA ARTHAPATTI AND ABHĀVA
of putting things will convince Jayanta that a feature positive or otherwise of a thing cannot be an independent object of perceptual cognition (for he has his own view of the matter), but it will make the Buddhist's position clearer. Actually, Jayanta concludes by saying that an 'absence' has its own way of producing a perceptual cognition concerning itself just as a positive thing has its own, 49 it being his further understanding that a positive thing might be of the form of a substance, a quality, an action, a universal, or what not.
Jayanta next considers the Buddhist's objection that no cosceivable relation obtains between an 'absence' and its locus, it being the latter's point that the proposed relation called qualifier-andqualificand presupposes either of the recognized relations conjunction and inherence. As a matter of fact, the Nyaya school came to posit 'absence' as an independent real rather late, and when it was posited no particular thought was given to the question as to how it should stand related to its locus. Otherwise, inherence was the school's standard relation supposed to relate things belonging to all sorts of categories (an exception being the relation conjunction supposed to relate two substances), and so it could be easily maintained that an 'absence' resides in its locus by way of it herence. Hence it was that the later Nyāya authors began to say that an 'absence resides in its locus by way of the relation called qualifier-and-qualificand. But since wherever x and y stand related x can be called a qualifier and y a qualificand (or vice versa) the opponents objected that the relation in question, unless strictly defined, is no particular relation. It is this objection as raised by the Buddhist that Jayanta is considering presently. Thus he begins by pleading that the rule that the relation qualifier-and-qualificand presupposes another recognized relation does not hold good when one relatum happens to be an 'absence." To this is added that the rule does not necessarily hold good even in case both the relata are something positive, the point being that x and y might be related without one being a qualifier and the other a qualificand while, on the other hand, x might be a qualifier toy without any other relation obtaining between x and y; th: formår aspe: is illustrated by saying that one is not called