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JĀTI AND NIGRAHASTHANA
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a treatment of even practical problems related to such debate was bound to culminate in a serious discussion on inference in particular and the means of valid cognition in general. And this is what actually happened in the history of Nyāya school which soon enough got busy with a discussion like that. Not only that, receiving impetus from the early Nyāya authors certain Buddhists and Mīmārsakas too developed a keen interest in the problems of logic and ultimately came out with certain characteristic ideas of their own related to the subject. However, thus appearing on the scene the Buddhist and Mimārsā logicians were somehow in a more favourable position than their Nyāya colleagues who were fated to carry much deadweight inherited from a more or less distant past. For exampe, this explains why Jayanta cuts such a sorry figure while defending against Dharmakirti's attack on the hallowed Nyāya doctrine of nigrahasthāna; similarly poor is the former's performance in connection with the doctrines of jāti, five avayavas, threefold public debate quibble etc., which were all traditional with the Nyāya school but being organically tied down to the problems of oral public debate had no particular logical significance. As a matter of fact, just one of the fourteen padārthas dealt with by Jayanta in the last one-sixth part of his text has a vital connection with his crucial discussion on the padārtha pramāna covering the first two-third of the text; (this padārtha is hetvābhāsa under which is covered the problem of pseudo-probans so important for all treatment of inference.)
