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Nyāya Criticism of Anekānta
105
in two cognitions-one of the place devoid of serpent and the other of the place endowned with serpent.43
And in the case of paryudāsa type of negation, the non-pot means something different from pot, i.e. a cloth. It is obvious that a cloth is different from a pot. If they are identical, then the use of the word i.e. ‘a pot' and its cognition may take place even in respect of a cloth, and vice versa.
The statement that a pot is a non-pot from the viewpoint of the nature of a cloth is also not true. What is derived by making such a statement? When we see a pot, from the viewpoint of the nature of a cloth, is a pot made non-pot by doing so? or a pot is cognised as non-pot? In the case of the first alternative, there is no proof to prove it. For example, when a lump of clay is seen as being made into the form of a pot by pot-makers and the like, that lump of clay is never seen as being made into the form of non-pot by anybody that day or on any other day. And if argued that a pot becomes non-pot, then that will amount to the destruction of the pot, and in that case there will be no object which could be called 'a pot'. Hence it is proved that even when we see a pot from the viewpoint of the nature of a cloth, a pot can never be made non-pot.44
Nor could the pot be known as non-pot even when one thinks of it from the viewpoint of the nature of cloth. And if the pot is somehow known to be non-pot, then there arises the contingency of that knowledge being an illusion, just as the cognition of silver arising in respect of non-silver is an illusion.45
It may be contended that a pot is called non-pot, because it is not cognised in the form of a cloth. But this contention cannot be maintained, since it is contradictory to cognise a pot as non-pot. On the contrary, we can assert that the pot is not cognised as having the nature of a cloth; on this very ground, it can be stated that the pot is exclusively of one nature and is therefore called a pot alone.46
43. Ibid, p.559. 44. Ibid, p.559. 45. Ibid, p.559. 46. Ibid, p.559.
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