Indian Logic Part 03

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

Page 17

INDIAN LOGIC relationship, an identification indulged in by the Naiyāyika while repudiating the absurd Mimāṁsā position that a word is inherently. capable of yielding the meaning it does. In any case, we can now see how the controversy as to word-meaning relationship is relevant for the specific problem of Jayanta's present section. For his point is that word-meaning relationship is established by God at the time of world-creation just as Vedas are composed by Him at that time; against it the Mimāṁsaka's counter-point is that word-meaning relationship is eternal just as Vedas are an eternal composition
Lastly to be taken up in this section is the problem as to how the Naiyāyika and the Mimāṁsaka respectively vindicate the validity of Vedic testimony. First is presented the Naiyāyika's case and then the Mimāṁsaka's. Thus Jayanta contends that on the showing of his school Vedas are a source of valid cognition because they are composed by an authoritative person, there being. an invariable concomitance to the effect that whatever exhibits the feature being composed by an authoritative person (symbolically C)' exhibits the feature being a source of valid cognition (symbolically S)'. Jayanta feels that his task is to show that Vedas exhibit the feature and that there obtains an invariable concomitance between the features C and S; how he accomplishes the task is revealing inasmuch as we thereby learn much about his precise understanding of the features C and S. As it turns out, he understands by being composed by .a person who knows everything about the subject matter concerned', by S a text enabling us to validly cognise everything about' the subject matter concerned.' For the following is how he argues that Vedas possess the feature C: "We have already proved that a word is not an eternal verity, that the Vedic sentential constructions must presuppose an author because they are sentential constructions, that there exists an omniscient person (= God) who has created everything whatsoever. Again, the nature of a cause must correspond to the nature of the effect concerned. And we are going to prove that Vedas are free from all those defects which are pointed out in it by our opponents, also that false are the illusionist doctrines like 'word-nondualism' 'Brahma-nondualism' etc. according to which Vedas are not of the form of an effect."7 By refuting the illusionist doctrines and by emphasising that Vedas are a collection of sentences Jayanta makes it doubly sure that they are