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INDIAN LOGIC
because here is how a learned and logical-minded spokesman of Puranic-Brahmanism would defend his case in the face of attacks. coming from the side of his equally learned and logical-minded powerful adversaries like Buddhists and Mimämsakas. We have already learnt that in Jayanta's eyes the chief aim of the Nyaya school of philosophy is to vindicate the validity of Vedic testimony and this aim it seeks to achieve through demonstrating that Vedas are a composition of God. Naturally, therefore, it is incumbent on Jayanta that he should prove that God exists and that it is He who composed Vedas; and in this connection he will argue against the Mimämsaka who believes that there is no God and that Vedas are an authorless composition. Then there are Buddhists who not only deny the existence of God but repudiate the validity of Vedic testimony itself; and Jayanta will seek to convince them that Vedas are free from all possible defect. Lastly, there was a huge mass of post-Vedic theological literature espoused by the Purāṇist-Brahmin (Puranas themselves constituting its chief sector); and Jayanta will seek to convince everybody that all this too is authentic scripture. All these theological questions Jayanta takes up in Ahnika IV which on this very account has become a chapter of exceptional significance; and our own examination of this chapter will be moulded accordingly. But the question of God's existence itself-an ontological question-Jayanta takes up in Ahnika III itself and now; (the chapter takes up one more question another ontological question and it is whether a word is an eternal verity, but the ultimate occasion for discussing this question too was the need to convince the Mimärsakas that Vedas are no eternal text). In this background let us see how Jayanta grapples with the problem of God's existence.
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Jayanta begins by presenting in details the atheist's own case. Thus the latter first contends that God is not cognised through. perception through no sense-born perception because He is no physical entity, through no manas-born perception because He is no mental state, through no yogic perception because there is no such perception. To this is added that for this very reason a perceptionbased invariable concomitance too cannot establish the existence of God. But all this might be conceded by the theist himself; so more noteworthy are the following two objections raised against an-analogybased invariable concomitance seeking to establish the existence of God3:
