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Epistem ulogy of Jainas as pleasure, pain, desire etc. are not known until the mind comes into their contact. Knowledge, according to the Nyāya, as has been stated before, is grasping in the physical sense. This grasping implies difference between the object grasped and that which grasps. The factor of grasping which is another name of knowledge, can not be grasped by itself. It requires another knowledge to be grasped.
The main objection against the Nyaya, advanced by other systems, is that the contention of after-thought leads to regress ad infinitum. If the cognition of jar requires another cognition to be cognized, the second cognition would require a third one and so on. The Nyāya replies to the objection that the judgement of the existence of jar stands in need of the apprehension of jar only. The second judgement, regarding the knowledge of jar requires another knowledge to apprehend it. It is not necessary for the first judgement that its knowledge must be cognized. The regress ad infinitum is applicable only if the first judgement is impossible without the second and second without the third. In the present case first judgement occurs with cognition of the jar without waiting for its own apprehension. The Jaina contends that no judgement can be confirmed unless its source is apprehended.
The Bhatta school of Mimāmsā goes a step further and holds that the knowledge of object i. e. pot, is not perceived even at subsequent moment. It is never directly known, either with the object or at a subsequent moment of reflection. The dictum runs, "Just as the tip of a finger cannot touch itself, so knowledge cannot know itself by itself”. Knowledge is known, however, through inference. In order to explain the quality of manifestedness (jñātatā) abiding in the object we must suppose, for want of any other explanation, that there was such a thing as knowledge of the object. Knowledge, therefore, is never known directly; it is inferred through the quality of knownness, that exists in the object and is experienced in the appearance of the pot.1 1. Bbāttacintāmaņi, p. 18
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