Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 137

116 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
(major), because it is full of smoke (middle), as a kitchen (example). The fallacies of example (dṛṣṭāntābhāsa) may arise in the homogeneous and heterogeneous forms, from a defect in the major or middle term or both, or from doubt about them.1
In view of what we have said above it is quite evident that later Jain logicians did not dissociate themselves from the general trend of Indian logical studies. They had adopted most of the terms and methods popularised especially by the Nyaya school. According to the Naiyayikas, an inference must be stated in the form of five propositions, called its avayavas or members. These are pratijñā, hetu, udaharaṇa, upanaya and nigamana.2 This five-membered syllogism may thus be illustrated: Devadatta is mortal (pratijñā); because he is a man (hetu); all men are mortal, e.g. Rama, etc. (udāharaṇa); Devadatta is also a man (upanaya); therefore he is mortal (nigamana). One should not fail to recall in this connection the syllogism put forward by Deva Sūri3: The hill is fiery (pakṣa-prayoga); because it is smoky (hetu-prayoga); whatever is firey is smoky, as a kitchen (drştanta); this hill is smoky (upanaya); therefore this hill is fiery. The Jains also accepted the ways and means of the Nyaya school to detect the argumental fallacies. Not only the material fallacies of inference like Asiddha (unproved middle), Viruddha (contradictory middle), Savyabhicāra (irregular middle), Satpratipakṣa (inferentially contradicated middle) and Vadhita (non-inferentially contradicted middle) were accepted, but fallacies of general nature like those of perception (pratyakṣābhāsa), of recollection (smaraṇābhāsa), of recognition (pratyabhijñānābhāsa), of argumentation (tarkābhāsa), of minor term (pakṣābhāsa), of middle term (hetvābhāsa), of example (dṛṣṭāntābhāsa) and of verbal testimony (āgamābhāsa) had as well been taken into account. Needless to say that later Jain logical conceptions derived their main impulses from the corresponding development of the Nyaya school.
But, in spite of all these, we come across an earlier stage of Jain logic which presents a different picture. The terminologies used in this earlier stage of development, although they bear an apparent similarity with the ones accepted in the history of Indian logic in general, have an altogether different significance. We have seen how
1For details see Vidyabhusana, HIL, pp, 157-224.
2TBH, pp. 48-49. PNTL, III.