Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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The Sophisticated Stage 103
is non-omniscient and non-omnipotent, and this cannot lead to the conclusion of the intelligent cause's omniscience. Quite aware of this the Nyāya-Vaiseșikas held that such a mode of argument would lead to the denial of any possibility of inference at all. If the concomitances are all understood in the specific senses, as the opponents like to do in the case of the jar, there remains no scope for inferential knowledge. Thus, for example, in the typical inference of fire from smoke, the corroborative instance usually cited is that of the kitchen oven, where the concomitance between smoke and fire is actually observed, but it should be understood in the wider sense of the concomitance between smoke-in-general and fire-in-general, otherwise the inference of fire in the hill from the presence of smoke therein can have no justification. The concomitance between the probans and the probandum, which serves as the basis of a legitimate inference, should therefore be viewed as a concomitance between two objects understood in their general senses and not in their specific senses. From this point of view the Nyāya-Vaiseșikas argue that what their inference establishes is simply that earth etc., have an intelligent cause in the general sense and not that these have an intelligent cause in the specific sense in which it is observed in the case of the potter. In the case of the jar, the intelligent cause presupposed, possesses a body no doubt, but such specific peculiarities do not inevitably qualify the intelligent cause. The essential factors that make the intelligent cause really effective in producing a jar are the potter's knowledge, will and effort. In spite of possessing a body, a person cannot produce the jar in the absence of any of these factors. Thus, the body cannot be considered as the cause because of its co-existence with these essential factors. Something which is merely co-existing with the real cause can never be given the status of the cause proper, just as the yellowish colour of the fire cannot be regarded, despite its co-existence, as the cause of the smoke.
Having thus established their first inference that earth, trees, etc. presuppose an intelligent cause, the Nyāya Vaišeşikas go on to establish their second inference that this intelligent cause of earth, etc. must be omniscient. They argue that just as the maker of something should have complete knowledge of the materials required for its production, so also God as the maker of every effect in the universe must possess the full knowledge of everything. Since such knowledge is evidently without any limit, God must be omniscient and one, the Supreme Agent. The variety and occasionality of the