Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 43

34
THE KARMA-MIMĀMSA
man who is alive is not in his house, we must assume that he has gone out, in order to make our thinking consistent with our perception. To give rise to presumption there must, Prabhākara holds, be doubt, which the presumption removes, and this element serves to distinguish presumption from inference, since inference can only begin when a certain fact, e.g. the existence of smoke, is known with perfect certainty. On the other hand, Kumārila's view is that presumption is impossible, if the original fact were in doubt, it is only because the absence of the man from his house is for certain known that it can come into operation; the origin of presumption lies rather in the apparent inconsistency of two equally certain facts, in this case, the man's absence and his being alive, which leads to the enunciation of a presumption to reconcile the apparent discrepancy, and it Is this reconciliation of apparent discrepancies which marks out presumption from inference. The Nyaya on the contrary finds place for presuniption under the purely negative (kevalov yatirekin) form of inference, in which it is impossible to adduce a positive instance of the general rule, but the Mināmsă could not accept this view since it declined to regard the use of the negative form in inference as satisfactory.
Unlike the Nyāya the Vrttikarat accepts non-existence (abhava), or, as it is also terned, non-apprehension (anu palabdhi), as a separate means of proof. The argument in favour of this view adopted by Kumārila is that the absence of any thing, e.g. of a jar on a particular spot of ground, cannot be the object of direct perception, which admittedly, according to the definition of the Mināmsā Sūtra, requires a present contact with the organs of sense, nor can it be arrived at by inference, analogy, presumption or verbal testimony. It can only arise into an object of knowledge through the fact that none of the normal methods of cognition can come into operation, and this peculiarity distinguishes it from any of these means. Prabhākara,
1 P. 10; Prakar ana pancikā, pp. 118-25; fiokavāritike, pp. 47392, Mänameyodaya, pp. 58-62, 114-18; cf. Nyāyamafijarī, pp. 49-54, Saddarsana Sa?ruccaya, pp. 295-98; it is refuted from the Jain standpoint, tid. pp. 206-7.