New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 130

New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
impermanent because it is audible and whatever is audible is a sound. Here there is internal concomitance (antarvyapti) between sound and audibility. Such concomitance is impossible of exemplification anywhere else. In external concomitance (bahirvyapti) the homologue is available and it is used in order to show universal concomitance by means of an example. But a probans does not enjoy the inferential power simply on account of the external concomitance (bahirvyapti) exhibited in an example, that is, the homologue.
122
In the inferences like, 'everything is momentary because it is real', there is no homologue for the probans. According to the Buddhists, there is nothing that is not momentary and so how could there be a homologue? In inferences like, 'this place is fiery because there is smoke, for example, a kitchen', the homologue is available, Smoke exists in the kitchen just as it exists in the subject (where the existence of fire is sought to be inferred). In the case of internal concomitance (antarvyapti) all the entities are included in the subject without any residuum. And so the existence of the probans in the homologue (sapakṣasattva) cannot be a valid characteristic of a probans.
The non-existence of the probans in the heterologue is anyathanupapatti (logical impossibility in the absence of the other). This alone is the characteristic of a probans. In the tradition of Jaina logic this characteristic has been unanimously accepted.
The Types of Probantia
In the logical tradition of the Jainas universal concomitance is not dependent only on identity (tādātmya) and causality (tadutpatti). Universal concomitance (avinabhava) is twofold, viz. (1) concurrence (sahabhāva), and (2) successive Occurrence (kramabhava). The concurrence may be due to identity and also in the absence of identity. Similarly, successive Occurrence (kramabhava) may be on account of causality or even without it. On the basis of this wide connotation of universal concomitance the probans has been classified into eight types, viz. identity (svabhava), determinate concomitant (vyapya), determinant concomitant (vyapaka), effect (karya), cause (karma), antecedent (pūrvacara), subsequent (uttaracara), and concurring (sahacara). Among these some probantia are of the nature of observation (perception) and some are of the nature of non-observation (nonperception). Each of these, viz. observation and non-observation