________________
146
JAINA ONTOLOGY their rivals that they had no right to speak of inference when they had not developed anything like the Jaina notion of tarka. Be that as it may, by his way of putting forth a definite list of pramānas Akalanka gave birth to what might rightly be called the Jaina school of Logic. For this list Akalanka was apparently indebted to Umāsvāti who had declared that mati, smsti, sanjña, cinta, abhinibodha are anarthantora. Following the tradition, Umāsvāti had also spoken of avadhi, manah paryaya and kevala as three types of extra-sensory perception and he had spoken of śruta as scriptural knowledge. Akalanka pondered over all this and finally maintained that mati stands for sensory (also mental) perception, avadhi, manahparyāya and kevala for extra-sensory perception - so that the four together consitute the pramāna called pratyakşa; again, he retained Umāsvāti's smặti, identified his sañjna with pratyabhijñā, his cintā with tarka, his abhinibodha with anumāna, his śruta with āgama and thus arrived at his own above list of six pramānas. But in the course of his quest Akalarka vacillated not a little on certain secondary questions. Thus in Pravacana-praveša he identified mati with indriya-pratyakşa; avadhi, manaḥparyāya and kevala with atindriya-pratyakşa while smrti, pratyabhijñā, tarka and anumana with anindriya-pratyakşa; thus śruta or agama being the only type of parokşajñāna. 50 This most faulty classification seems to have been the earliest. In Pramānanayapravesa on the cther hand Akalanka identified mati with indriyapratyaksa and anindriya-pratyakşa, avadhi, manahparyaya and kevala with atīndriyapratyakşa, at the same time maintaining that smrti, pratyabhijña, tarka and anumāna are mati before the employment of words and śruta after it:31 (on śruta or agama he here retained his old understanding). This was the better classification than the earlier one. Lastly in Nyāyaviniscaya and Pramāṇasangraha Akalanka retained the latter understanding of indriya. pratyakşa, anindriya pratyakşa, atındriyapratyakșa (and the old understanding of śruta or agama) but in the first text he went on to add that smsli, pratyabhijñāna, tarka and anumāna are types of śrutajñāngsa, in the second that they are types of parokşajñana3 3 (without further elaborating the point). These two classifications were an improvement on the second - the latter being better. All this was indicative of Akalanka's endeavour to equate his six pramānas with mati, śruta, avadhi, manaḥ paryāya, kevala on the one hand, with pratyakşajñāna and porokşajñana on the other. The later authors gave up the former part of endeavour and simply maintained that sensory (also mental) perception and the three types of extra-sensory perception are pratyaksajñāna while smộti, pratyabhijña, tarka, anumäna and āgama are paroks ajñāna. However, Akalanka's treatment of pramānas as such contains little that is of ontological signification and so it is time we take leave of it.
(iv) A General Evaluation of the non-Jaina Philosophical Views
We have already noted how Akalanka while vindicating Anekāntavada took into consideration the rival philosophical views. But even otherwise he
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org