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THE AGE OF LOGIC
127
(ii) Pramāņa Jinabhadra's treatment of pramānas is thoroughly Agamic in the sense that it preceded Akalanka's treatment of the same. For Akalanka gave an entirely new turn to the whole discussion so much so that on the question of pramānas it seems somewhat odd to think of Jin abhadra as a predecessor of Akalanka. [By way of contrast, let us note that on the question of Anekantavada Jinabhadra is certainly a worthy predecessor of Akalarka). However, Jinabhadra's treatment of pramāṇas is also not thoroughly Agamic inasmuch as it is based on a logical consideration of the issuess involved. As a matter of fact, Jinabhadra's treatment of pramānas and Akalanka's treatment of the same have to be viewed as two co-ordinate growths of the age of Logic, the former working within the traditional framework the latter working within a framework that better conformed to the fashion of the period. Of course, Jinabhadra himself implicitly makes some sort of distinction between a treatment of pramānas and a treatment of jnanas, for whenever he speaks of pramānas he speaks of pratyakşa, anumāna and agama while he never assigns the epithet pramāna to mati, śruta, etc. This means that Jinabhadra too was somehow aware of the demands of the fashion of the period but he deemed it improper to replace an account of mati, śruta, etc. by that of pratyakşa, anumāna, āgama. The result was that his references to pratyakşa, anumāna and ägama (all called pramāna) remained incidental while his really significant epistemological discussion centred around the treatment of mati, śruta, etc (all called jñāna). To put it in a nut-shell Jinabhadra's problem in this field was to show how the traditional concept of mati and śruta account for the whole range of ordinary cognition. For mati seemed to be identical with determinate perception and śruta identical with scriptural knowledge. Even extending the meaning of śruta so as to bring under it all cases of the acquisition of a knowledge of word-meaning there remained inference to be accounted for and the problem of inference was in a way the key problem of the age of Logic. As if in order to meet this difficulty Jinabhadra extended the meaning of mati, for in his eyes it was no more just determinate perception but also included all post-perceptual consideration of the nature of the object perceived. For he contended that what was a paya in determinate perception became avagraha in the first stage of further consideration, what was a pāya in this first stage became avagraha in the second stage, what was a pāya in the second stage became avagraha in the third, and so on till deemed necessary (v. 285). And certainly Jinabhadra's endeavour is comparable to Akalanka's much better known innovations according to which smộti, pratybhijñā, tarka and anumāna were inserted in between mati understood as determinate perception and śruta understood as scriptural knowledge. However, Jinabhadra's treatment of jnanas hardly raises any ontological issues of vital importance and we therefore proceed with the matter no further.
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