Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 20

PERCEPTION
of thinking. Thus to the latter it makes absolutely no sense that the karana of an act and this act itself are one with each other; so citing an illustration he points out that just as in the act of reaping a paddyplant the reaper is the agent, the paddy-plant the object, the sickle the instrument so also in the act of visual perceptual cognizing a jar the cognising soul is the agent, the jar the object, the eye the instrument.18 Similarly is found senseless the Buddhist insistence that a pramāna and the pramānaphala concerned cannot be located in two different seats. To make some sense out of this insistence Jayanta first interprets it to mean that a pramāna and the pramānaphala concerned cannot have to do with two different objects, something which he concedes as plainly understandable inasmuch as a karana of perceptual cognition like eye works on the same object which happens to be the object of this cognition itself. But then taking the words in question in their usual meaning the Buddhist's position is refuted on three grounds, viz. (1) on the Buddhist's showing nothing acts as seat to anything, (2) fuel acts as karaṇa in the act of cooking but the seat of fuel and the seat of the act of cooking are abviously different, (3) when one cognition acts as karana in relation to another inasınuch as the former is a member of the causal aggregate that produces the latter the concerned cognizing soul is a common seat of both these cognitions, but this consideration is irrelevant for the present purpose, there being nothing corresponding to it when (for example) a sense-organ acts as karana in the act of perceptual cognition.20 Lastly it is argued that the different members of the causal aggregate that produces a cognition might be said to have the same seat inasmuch as they produce the same result, but that it will be senseless to say that such a member and this result itself produce the same result.21 At this stage Jayanta is naturally reminded of the Buddhist's contention that a cognition produced by the concerned causal aggregate apparently undertakes an operation in order to produce a result (the operation being only apparent inasmuch as the instrument and the result are one and the same thing). The Buddhist bases himself on the consideration that on the one hand a cognition apparently undertakes an operation in the form of grasping its object (apparently because the object is actually no more there when the cognition is there) while on the other hand this cognition is of the form of an apprehension of its object; thus it is that a cognition which is itself a result produced through the operation of a causal aggregate apparently undertakes an operation called 'grasping its object in order to produce the result