New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

Page 119

Organs of Knowledge 111
pendent organ of knowledge. The Naiyayikas and others count it as neither valid nor invalid but consider it as only an auxiliary to a valid organ of knowledge. In Jaina logic, however, it has been accepted as an independent organ of knowledge. It has a distinct function of its own and as such it belongs to a separate category of indirect cognition (parokṣa pramāṇa) in addition to the other four, viz. memory, recognition, verbal testimony and inference. The universal concomitance (vyāpti) is embodied in propositions like 'wherever there is smoke, there is fire'. The knowledge of such concomitance is obtained neither by sensuous nor by mental perception. The perception cognizes the effect and the cause but cannot know their relationship. Inference, on the other hand, occurs after the universal concomitance is known and so the concomitance cannot be comprehended by the inference too. If the universal concomitance is established by inference and if inference is established by universal concomitance, then in such circumstance of mutual dependence (anyonyaśraya) no decisive certitude would be possible. In order to solve this problem the Jaina logicians accepted the validity of reasoning (tarka) as an independent organ of knowledge for the dicovery of universal concomitance.
The function of reasoning is to ascertain the universal concomitance. Whatever is smoke is produced by fire and not by anything else. Reasoning is based on the cognition (upalambha) of smoke on the occurrence of fire and the non-cognition (anupalambha) of smoke in the absence of fire, which (i.e. cognition and noncognition) lead to the ascertainment of the causal relationship between the smoke and the fire.
Causality is determined by the observation of concomitance in agreement and of concomitance in difference which has been analysed by the Buddhists into five cases of cognition, two positive and three negative. In the first instance there is non-apprehension of the effect, say smoke, in a particular place. This is called noncognition number one. In the second case, there is cognition of fire and cognition of smoke. These are two positive cognitions. In the third place there occurs non-cognition of fire accompanied with non-cognition of smoke. There are two non-cognitions in this case. Thus in all, there are five cognitions, viz. the initial negativecognition, the two subsequent positive cognitions, and finally the two negative cognitions. This fivefold cognition at once gives us to understand that the two events are causally related-the antecedent being called the cause and the consequent the effect. The Sanskrit