Jain Journal 1998 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 21

JAIN: CONTRIBUTION OF THE JAINA LOGICIANS TO INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGY 19 independent pramāņa.It is to be noted that they include upamāna (comparison) in the category of the knowledge of similarity under recognition.
iv. Establishment of inductive reasoning (tarka) as pramāņa
It is also a significant contribution of the Jaina logicians that they established the tarka as an independent pramāṇa.. They propound that invariable relation between probans (hetu) and probandum (sādhya) can be known only by Tarka pramāņa. Tarka of inductive reasoning expresses the universal necessary concomitance between probans and probandum. Hemacandra says Inductive reasoning is the knowledge of universal concomitance conditioned by observation and non-observation (Pramāṇa-mimāmsā, 1.2.4).
In the Nyāyasūtra of Gotama tarka (reasoning) has been used for indicating inference orArthāpatti (presumptive cognition). It is only the Jaina logicians who considered tarka as a knowledge of universal concomitance. Akalanka, Vidyananda, Prabhācandra, Vādidevasūri and Hemacandra are the logicians who advanced cogent arguments for the establishment of tarka as an independent pramāņa.
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The main arguments are:
The object which is cognised by tarka is not cognised by any other pramāņa. Tark is a knowledge of universal concomitance. No other pramāņa can do so, neither perception nor inference. The validity of inference depends on tarka, because it is a knowledge of necessary concomitance and without the knowledge of necessary concomitance inference cannot arise.
It has a corresponding nature.
It is not conceivable that perception is competent to discharge the entire series of operations that are involved in the knowledge that whatever is a case of smoke is invariable the product exclusively of fire in all places and times, and not of anything else. The reason that it is not discursive and owes its genesis to the inference exerted by a datum that is present,
If Inference is competent to know the necessary-concomitance then it will result in infinite regress, because an inference will require another inference.
Thus the Jaina logicians have established tarka as independent pramāņa by presenting cogent arguments. This shows their intensive thinking about the system of epistemology and logic.