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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
is so because there are verbal statements that have no particular intention, i.e., desire to express a particular information, as their cause. For example, a drunken man or a mad person speaks sentences without any particular intention. He has merely the desire to speak but not a particular desire, i.e., the desire to convey a particular information. Thus, verbal statements qua verbal statements enable us to infer only the disire of the speaker to speak but the verbal statements qua utterances of a normal man enable us to infer his desire to convey a particular thing.35 The desire of the speaker to convey a particular information is not always generated by actual fact. So, the knowledge of intention could not enable us to infer the fact.36 ' .
We should note that the inference that enables us to infer only the intention cannot be regarded as a source of knowledge or pramāna, because it does not give us the knowledge of things and facts while a source of knowledge (pramāņa) gives us the knowledge of things and facts. We may call this inference of intention from words a source of knowledge (pramāņa) only by way of courtesy, considering the intention itself to be the fact. Thus, on the basis that verbal statements, when understood, enable us to infer the intention of the speaker, the Buddhist logicians could not regard this verbal knowledge to be a case of inference which is a source of knowledge of external things and facts.
The Buddhist logicians know this and are conscious also of the force of the objection. They, therefore, go one step further and observe that words or verbal statements not only indicate the speaker's intention but also enable us to infer the things and facts provided they are known to be spoken or written by an authority because it is a general rule that the words of an authority always correspond to facts. ?
They further observe that it is ingrained in man to take for granted the authoritativeness of a person or a scripture whose words are in tune with his desires or interests. Man accepts preceptors and scriptures as authoritative on matters pertaining to heavenly happiness and hellish tortures and the ways and means to attain and avoid them, respectively, because he craves for the one and shivers merely at the thought of the other, and there is no other valid knowledge to contradict them. But if a man is determined to lead his life in accordance with the words of the scriptures or the preceptors (i.e., in accordance with the knowledge derived through those words), he should first examine and ascertain their authoritativeness which has so far been taken for granted.
