Indian Logic Part 03

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

Page 74

PROBLEMS OF UNIVERSALS,...
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its impelling power and rests satisfied with merely indicating that the action concerned is to bring about the result concerned; the "former's simple point is that an injunction with no impelling power is just no injunction.64 The Prabhākarite objects : "But in that case one would be committing a sin by not obeying a non-obligatory injunction”; Jayanta retorts: “A non-obligatory injunction is addressed to one desirous of a particular result and such a one does obey it; on the other hand, it has nothing to do with one not desirous of that result just as an injunction specifically addressed to a Vaiśya has nothing to do with a Ksatriya."65 The argument is resumed later on by emphasising a unanimously held point. Thus everybody conceded that an injunction impels one to undertake an action not by physically forcing one to undertake this action but by telling one that this action is to bring about that result; now Jayanta submits that this amounts to conceding that all obeying of an injunction consists in undertaking the action concerned with a view to getting the result concerned: 66 But the Prabhākarite has contended that if a Vedic injunction must be forced to point out a result then it will cease to be an indepenedent impelling agent; Jayanta retorts : “On the contrary, a Vedic injunction will cease to be an independent impelling agent in case it points out no result; for then no intelligent person will feel like obeying it. True, one might not obey it even after it has' pointed out a result, but there is no question of one's obeying it if it does no such pointing-out."67 Certainly, the fact that one having faith in Vedas follows a Vedic injunction unconditionally (this is the meaning of Vedas being an independent impelling agent) is turned by the Prabhākarite into a fiction that such a one follows a Vedic injunction without any consideration of the likely result. Meanwhile Jayanta has given thought to the secular illustration of a student following the : preceptor's injunction. Thus the Prabhākarite has contended that what here impels the student to undertake an action is the preceptor's injunction; Jayanta retorts that introspection reveals that the impelling is here done not by the preceptor's injunction but by the student's own desire to get a result.68 In this connection Jayanta considers an intermediate position according to which y obeys x's injunction in order to please x; this is an intermediate position because here too y is not interested in his own pleasure even while being interested in x's pleasure, a position rejected by Jayanta as