New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 98

90
New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
There cannot be a valid organ of knowledge if there is doubt or error (perverted cognition). The adjective 'free from contradiction' (badha-vivarjitam) has been used in the definition of a valid organ of knowledge in order to exclude them (viz. doubt and error). The adjective is representative of the word 'samyak' (meaning right). In the theory of knowledge the two words that are frequently used are jñāna (cognition) and ajñāna (non-cognition). Non-cognition includes doubt and error. This is why 'a cognition is a valid organ of knowledge can be regarded as a sufficient definition of a valid instrument of knowledge (pramāņa). Umāsvāti has defined a valid organ of knowledge as cognition. A cognition is positively right and determinative. What is false and indeterminate is not a cognition, but a piece of non-cognition. This definition of Umāsvāti has been made easily understandable to the rival schools by adding the adjective 'freedom from contradiction' (badhavivarjitam). A cognition reveals an object. But if it did not reveal itself simulta. neously, it could not have revealed an object either. It is, therefore, both self-cognizant and a cognizant of others. This adjective 'cognizant of self as well as of others' has been used to explain this aspect of an organ of knowledge (pramāņa).
Ācārya Akalanka has introduced some clarification by making some new additions and alterations. He has replaced the phrase 'freedom from contradiction' by the expression 'non-discrepant' (avisamvadi). Doubt and error are not non-discrepant cognitions and this is the reason why they are not valid organs of knowledge. A valid organ of knowledge is only the cognition that is non-discrepant. The second adjective introduced in the definition of a valid organ of knowledge by Akalanka is 'what cognizes an object not known before." This adjective, however, does not appear appropriate in view of the fact that Akalanka has recognised memory (smrti) also as a valid organ of knowledge. But from the modal viewpoint (paryāyārthika naya) the adjective is meaningful, although from the substantial viewpoint (dravyarthika naya) a cognition that knows an object cognized before, or is continuously knowing the same object, is a valid organ of knowledge. From the modal viewpoint the object that is changing every moment is necessarily an unknown object, being fresh every moment. And so what we know was never known before and is unknown in this sense. The adjective 'not known before' (anadhi. gata) expresses this aspect of the object of a valid organ of knowledge. In the Buddhist logic we find the adjective 'cognition of an object not known before' (anadhigatarthādhigama) used in the