Indian Logic Part 02

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

Page 55

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INDIAN LOGIC
is something unreal superimposed on a unique particular which is alone real and is something different from everything else whether belonging to its own class or belonging to an alien class. Then comes the following piece : "A cognition of the form of kalpanā does not invariably follow in the wake of sense-object contact. For it might possibly arise even in the absence of sense-object contact, and even in case it arises in the wake of sense-object contact it invariably requires the memory of an earlier learnt word ; certainly, if it were a product of sense-object contact it would have arisen as soon as this contact took place. The conclusion is that the cognition in question is not at all a product of sense-object contact. Certainly, if even after encountering the object concerned a sensory cognition must require the services of the memory of an earlier learnt word, there will arise a gap between this cognition and this object. Nor can it be said that the memory of an earlier learnt word-meaning comes to the assistance of a sense-organ in cognizing its object; for apart from the consideration that the concept of an assistant cause is untenable, the fact remains that this memory, its application to the present case and all that is a time-consuming process while a sense-organ cognizes its object through a nirvikalpaka cognition as soon as this sense-organ encounters this object." The whole argumentation makes strange reading. For what it is able to prove is that sensory experience and thought are two distinct types of process, each produced by its own distinct type of causal aggregate, so that even when the two are produced together a sensory experience is a sensory experinece, a thought is a thought. Not that to prove this was a mean performance, for thus to distinguish between sensory experience and thought was in a way the high water-mark of the Buddhist's speculation on logical problems; certainly, the distinction is not only very important but is also drawn very correctly. The difficulty rather is with the insinuation - nay, open declaration - that sensory experience has to do with something that is real, thought to do with something that is unreal. So using the standard terminology of Indian logic it was proclaimed that pratyaksa (= bare sensory experience) is a pramāņa (= valid cognition), kalpanā (= thought) is no pramāņa. His old question as to why kalpanā is no pramāņa Jayanta repeats, this time elaborating it a bit; thus he says : “May be kalpanā is of two sorts - one that is of the form of building castle in the air, the other that grasps a present object like a blue patch. Nobody cares if the former is said to be no