Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 38

THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE
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are supersensuous (adrstasvalakşaña) may equally be inferred; thus Prabhākara deduces from the general principle of the relation of cause and effect the existence of the capacity, eg, of fire to burn. In the Vrttikāra the distinction appears as pratyakşato dystasambandha and sãmânyato drştasaribandha, terminology reminiscent at once of the Nyāya Sūtra and of Prasastapāda; the latter is illustrated by the inference to the sun's movement from the observation of a man's change of place as following on movement.
Following Dignāga and Prasastapada, but in disagreement with the orthodox commentators on the Nyāya Sutra, the Mimāniisā distinguishes between the inference for oneself, which is the true logical process, and that for another, which is in reality enunciation for another person of the process of reasoning, which leads to his drawing the conclusion already arrived at by the first person. In inference for one's self the process is that something is perceived, and recognised as invariably connected with something else, which thus is recalled to the mind; in inference for another a formal order of statement is usually adopted. First the proposition to be established is enunciated, e.g. "The mountain is fiery," the enunciation serving to bring before the mind any contrary judgment which might sublate it. Then the ground for the conclusion thus set out is given in the form of a general rule, supported by a corroborative instance, eg. "Where there is smoke, there is fire, as in a kitchen." Finally, the necessary link between the conclusion and the general principle is supplied by the statement that the muiddle term exists in the subject, e.g. "The mountain is smoking." The order of the propositions is zot regarded as of importance by Prabhākara or the other inembers of the school, who agree in rejecting the more complicated scheme of the Nyāya in which, with a certain redundancy due to its origin in dialectic, the argument is expounded in the five propositions, e.g. "The mountain is fiery; Because it is smoking; Where there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen; And this (mountain) is so (possessed of smoke with which fire is invariably concomitant); Therefore is it thus (fiery)." The omission of the last two members is no material injury to the scheme, while Buddhist logicians