Indian Logic Part 01

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

Page 99

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INDIAN LOGIC
be available there as before. Jayanta thus refuses to concede that 'absence of jar' is not something independently real but just an aspect of the nature of potsherds, but to be fair to him it must be admitted that this mode of arguing is something natural to a Buddhist, something foreign to a Prabhākarite. Lastly, Jayanta raised a point basing himself on the consideration that the meaning of a word must represent something real, a consideration broadly valid in the eyes of a Prabhākarite, a Kumārilite, a Naiyāyika even if not so in the eyes of a Buddhist; thus the Prabhākarite is asked: “Since 'unlike the Buddhist you do not hold that a word represents a mere idea, please tell what according to you is the meaning of the word 'not.'73 Here again, Jayanta will receive an answer where the mode of arguing followed will be something natural to a Buddhist, something foreign to a Prabhākarite; for this answer will consist in contending that the word 'not' does possess a meaning but that this meaning represents nothing that is independently real.
Jayanta closes the topic by reporting as to how 'absence was classified into types variously by various authorities, a point not of much fundamental importance. For the really fundamental question was as to whether an 'absence' is or is not an independent real existing by the side of the thing characterised by this 'absence', a question answered in the negative by the Buddhist and the Prabhākarite, in the affirmative by the Naiyāyika and the Kumārilite. Even so, let it be noted that the types here spoken of are six in all and as follows:
(1) 'prior absence' or absence before coming into existence (2) posterior absence' or absence after going out of existence (3) ‘mutual absence' or absence of identity (4) 'absolute absence' or utter absence (5) 'relative absence' or temporary absence (6) 'absence of a capacity'
(the sixth type is obscure and might cover those cases where the Mimāṁsaka would speak of destruction of a capacity')