Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 37

THE KARMA-MĪMĀṀSA
connection of the individual fire and smoke perceived by him, but that of fire and smoke in their general aspect. Prabhakara, however, does not recognise this view, the elaboration of which is characteristic of a later epoch. He denies that sense perception can give the knowledge of a universal connection, since it deals only with particular times and places; he also rejects the view that the connection can rest on inference or presumption, since obviously thus there would be a regressus in infinitum; nor will he accept the view that it is due to mental activity only, as suggested by the doctrine of Dignaga, since if the mind had this power, why is man not omniscient? His own view is that fire and smoke are perceived by sense as in relation to each other, as qualified by certain conditions of place and time. By repeated experience the impression is gained that, while the presence of smoke is always accompanied by the presence of fire, the reverse relation does not hold, but is qualified always, unlike the former, by special conditions of place and time. Hence emerges the recognition of the permanent relation of smoke and fire, so that the sight of smoke immediately produces the conception of fire. He admits that we do not by inference arrive at any knowledge which we had not before, but he does not admit that this is any defect to the inferential process, which does not involve novelty of result. The school of Kumārila, however, in accordance with its definition of apprehe or Pachte Arode of something not previously reprchcnced, prival with perfect truth, that the actual inference gives us much more than the mere knowledge of the connection of smoke and fire, which is already known; it enables us to infer the presence, at a particular time and place beyond our vision, of the existence of fire as result of the perception of smoke. Cidananda1 recognises also the part played by the reductio ad absurdum in arriving at the knowledge of the universal connection.
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The relationship, however, which affords the basis of inference, need not refer merely to things which fall within the limits of perception (drstasvalaksana); matters which
1 Manameyodaya, p. 15.