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PRAMANAMIMANSA AND
HEMACANDRA
SATKARI MOOKHERJEE AND NATHMAL TATIA
The Pramānamimänsä of Hemacandra occupies an important posttion in the philosophical literature of India in general and in the Jaina philosophical literature in particular It is a standard text-book in Jaina logic and epistemology which every student of Jaina philosophy has got to study It is quite natural that Hemacandra is deeply indebted to the previous writers both of Jaina and non-Jaipa schools and a fastidious critic will find in Hemacandra's texts reproduction of ipissima verba as well as of thoughts of previous writing sometimes acknowledged and sometimes without explicit acknowledgement But this need not detract from the merits of the work since Indian writers do not make a fetish of originality either of thought or language, and they make no scruple of inserting the agruments of predecessors even in their own language provided the views expressed therein accord with their philosophical position The writings of predecessors are looked upon as public Property and they are used with perfect freedom and impunity It is absolutely plain that authors like Hemacandra with their extraOrdinary command of the Sanskrit idiom could with the least difficulty express these thoughts in their own language and pass them off as their own original production But the fact that these authors with their uncommon felicity of verbal expression did not stop to such tactics is symptomatic of a profound trait of Indian character in the past ages It shows that they were more interested in the views wbich they regarded as sound exponents of truth than in their personal triumph And as far the reproduction of the very linguistic expressions or the manner of delivery it can be accounted for by the hypothesis that they thought them to be unexceptionable forms of expression which required no improvement or variation for being more effective or impressive We therefore take the earliest opportunity of sounding a warning against the application of tests of recent criticism in the assessment of the value of an ancient philosophical work
As regards the originality of thought which is so highly praised in Europe and in the modern universities of India our ancient writers did not set an inordinate value on it It was as much a matter of minor importance with them as originality of verbal expression A serious work
