Indologica Taurinensia

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

Page 31

On the Relationship of the Nyāyâvatāra and the Sammati-tarka-prakarāņa
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follows: 'He has seen a deer; if I look there the way he does, I will also see it.
Instead of finding in the above passage 'a clear influence of Prajñākara who provided the NV-author with an idea of 'parārtha pratyakşa', we see just the opposite: it is Prajñākaragupta who criticises the idea formulated in NA. This criticism cannot prove that the person whom Prajñākaragupta had in mind was Siddhasena Mahāmati and his NA. All we can with certainty say is that the criticism is directed against the same idea which we find in NA, and which may have been also maintained by some other thinker(s) who might have directly provoked Prajñākaragupta censure. We cannot, however, claim with absolute certitude - but with a high degree of probability - that it was indeed Siddhasena Mahāmati who was the inventor of the notion of parârtha-pratyakșa.
Additional corroboration for the above hypothesis is provided by Siddharsi-ganin, the commentator on NA. In his Nyāyâvatāra-vivrti, he refers to Prajñākaragupta critical remarks, and reasserts the genuineness of parârtha-pratyakșa:
'If perception were conjectured to be superior, on account of (the argument that) in certain cases the indirect cognition proceeds by the force of the relation which has [first] been grasped by perception, (then) the superiority of the indirect cognition would follow immediately on account of (the argument that) it is (also) an empirical fact that (1) a perception the province of which is a deer (that is observed] due to a sudden movement of the neck by the force of the speech element (sc. expression): “Look! A deer is running!” etc., [or] similarly [2] la perception) the domain of which is a forest or a temple, etc. (that are recognised) either due to the recollection (of the forest or the temple, etc.,) as such or due to grasping the linguistic convention [relating the word "temple" and the object temple) as such with curiosity, etc., to see objects not seen before, is preceded by the indirect cognition (in both cases). 86
86. NAV 1.8, p. 341: kvacit pratyaksa-parigrhita-sambandha-balāt paroksam pravartata iti pratyakşasya jyesthatva-kalpane "paśya mrgo dhävatîty” -adi-sabdabalāt krkâtikā-motana-dvāreņa mrga-vișayam, tathā smaraņāt sanketa-grahaņād vâpūrvâpūrvārtha-darśana-kutāhalâdinā vana-deva-kulâdi-gocaram parokșa-pārvam pratyakşam drstam iti parokşasya jyeșthatâsajyeta. A rejoinder to Siddharşi-ganin's position seem to have been formulated subsequently by Durveka Miśra, see n. 84.