Indologica Taurinensia

Author(s): Colette Caillat, Siegfried Lienhard, Irma Piovano, Saverio Sani
Publisher: Comitato AIT

Page 17

On the Relationship of the Nyāyâvatāra and the Sammati-tarka-prakarāņa
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ture of cognition (jñāna) 51. At the same time, NA 27 defines the absolute cognition (kevala) as 'a perception that is a representation [revealing) constantly the essences of all objects' (p. 8, n. 41). Thus, the absolute cognition (kevala) is defined with the help of the characteristic mark of jñāna, and the only difference between kevala and ordinary jñāna is that the former is a representation of all things, whereas the latter is a representation limited only to some of their aspects. This can be interpreted as a proof that the kevala of NA is jñāna and the aspect of darśana is either not relevant or not important for Siddhasena Mahāmati, in so far as the author of NA does not consider it imperative to explain the nature of kevala explicitly. This would be surprising, if we assumed that the same person wrote also STP and was once in pains to prove that both jñāna and darśana become one single unity on the level of kevala.
4. In STP we come across the fivefold division of cognition: (1) mai-nāna = mati-jñāna (STP 2.6, 23, 27) that corresponds to ahinibohe = ābhinibodhika-jñāna (STP 2.32), (2) suya-ņāņa = śruta-jñāna (STP 2.16, 27, 28), (3) ohi = avadhi (STP 2.16, 29), (4) maņapajjava = manah-paryāya (STP 2.3, 16, 19, 26) and (5) kevala (STP 2.3, 5, 8, 14, 17, 20, 34, 36, 37). This is the typology well known from TS 1.9-12 (vide supra n. 10) as well as from Thāņ 60 52 (vide infra p. 11 ff.).
51. NA 7: sakala-pratibhāsasya bhrāntatvâsiddhitah sphutam/
pramānam svânya-niścāyi dvaya-siddhau prasidhyati // - - 'Since it is incorrect to assume erroneousness of all representation, cognitive criterion, which is patent [and] which determines itself and something different [from it), proves to be correct with regard to establishing the dyad.' Cf. NA 12: pratyaksa-pratipannârtha-pratipādi ca yad vacah /
pratyakşam pratibhāsasya nimittatvāt tad ucyate // - ‘And such an utterance that demonstrates an object recognised through perception is called perception, because it is the external sign for the representation.
52. This must have been the tradition from which TS evolved. In Thān 336 we come across another strand of epistemological tradition (vide infra, n. 56). In fact, the epistemological ramifications of STP are even closer to Thān 60 than to TS 1.9-12, inasmuch as both STP and the divisions found in Thān 60 lack the 'pramāna' element, in other words, pramāna does not occur in the classification at all. Clearly, this strand is not the tradition from which NA stems from. We do, however, find in the Jaina Agamas another strand - in Viy 5.4.26[3] and in Thāņ 336 (partly AņD 436] (vide infra, n. 56) - that goes back to the four-fold division of cognitive criteria, viz. pratyakşa-anumāna-aupamya-āgama, apparently derived from the Nyāya and