________________
116
Jain-Tarka-Bhasa
tained reasoning as the remover of doubt. The answer is that Dharmabhusana used the term 'ignorance' in the sense of wrong knowledge. Wrong knowledge is the same thing as doubt. It may again be objected that an organ of knowledge according to the Jainas must remove ignorance and if we accept reasoning only as the remover of doubt, how can we hold it to be an organ of knowledge. The answer is two-fold. In the first place knowledge means definite cognition which is not possible without the removal of doubt. Therefore, reasoning does remove ignorance when it removes doubt. Secondly, all organs of knowledge lead to the definitive cognition of the self and reasoning is no exception to it. Therefore, the general resultant of the organ of knowledge, viz. the removal of ignorance, is not wanting in the case of reasoning either.
P. 12. L. I. The definition of inference has been directly taken from Hemacandra. The first to define inference was Siddhasena who used the word Linga in place of sadhana (Nyayavatāra, 5). The first author to use the terminology of our. text was Akalanka (Nyayaviniscaya, part II, 2.1) who was followed by other Jaina logicians.
It was Dharmabhusana who offered a criticism of the definition of inference as given by Uddyotakara and followed by other Naiyayika (Nyayadipika, p. 66). The Naiyayikas hold that inference consists in the comprehension of the probane (Lingaparamarsa). This comprehension has been defined as the knowledge of the subsistence of the probane in the subject qualified by the knowledge of universal concomitance. Obviously this definition cannot be tenable for the Jainas who, as would be clear from the following para of the text, do not maintain subsistence in the subject as the necessary condition for inference. Dharmabhusana objected to the definition of the Naiyayikas on the basis that it defines only the probane and not the probandum. The comprehension of the probane is only the cause of inference and not inference itself (Nyayadipikā, p. 67).
It may be mentioned here that while Abhayadevasūri amongst the Svetambaras and Akalanka amongst the Digambaras criticise three varieties of inference given in the Nyayasutra (1. 1. 5), Yasovijaya, following Hemacandra, kept silence
