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NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
and memory. On this assumption we may reduce all kinds of knowledge to perception, since the constituents of all knowledge ultimately come from perception".2
The Nyaya theory of upamāna explains how to know the denotation of a word. Upamāna is the process of knowledge by which we come to know that a particular word denotes a particular class of objects, and the nature of process of knowledge involved in our understanding the denotation of words is such that it is neither the case of perception nor can it be reduced to inference or testimony or any combination of these. It cannot be explained by memory. The essential point in upamāna is neither the perception of similarity nor the verbal knowledge of the denotation of a word but the recognition of certain object not known before as belonging to a certain class denoted by certain word. Upamāna in Nyaya really aims at the knowledge of the denotation of a word. This knoledge is not even inferential cognition because it is possible without the knowledge of Vyapti, between two terms which is the fundamental characteristic of an inference. Further, there is difference between the forms of cognitions in inference and upamāna. In Upamāna the resulting cognition is in terms of likeness, we compare and do not infer. Again all knowledge of likeness is not memory. So it is not exclusively based on rememberance. Though upamana involves perception and memory, neither perception alone nor memory alone can give us knowledge of the denotation of a word. The process of knowing the denotation of a certain word is unique. Nyaya, therefore, concludes that such a method of knowledge is known as upamāna which is a valid source of knowledge. It should be given an independent status as it is irreducible to any other means of knowledge. As it cannot be
