________________
134
NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
grounds. Even there is a specific kind of contact laid down by them to effect this perception. It is a relation of predicate and subject qualifier and qualificand. In perception of absence of anything there is a contact between the bare locus and visual sense-organ. Secondly, there is also a unique relation, which can be called a qualifying relation between the locus and the absence of the particular thing. In this way, non-existence is perceived as qualifying the ground, where a particular thing is absent. Hence the Nyāya view that cognition of absence is a perceptual judgement. Nyāya realists have, thus, postulated a unique relation between the absence and the locus. They admitted the reality of relations.
In Nyāya logic, negative statements are not meaningless or non-sensical. Though non-existence is itself negative, the notion of it is positive.
Nyāya argues that it is wrong to maintain that a negative fact is cognisable only by means of negative means of proof. Nyāya also opposes subjectivist view of negation according to which negation has no corresponding negative fact. It words refer to the real, reality of negation is undeniable. Its object is not subjective but is external to mind. Nyāya as a system of realism postulates objective reality to negation. Nyāya realism, thus, propounds that nonexistence is a proper object of cognition and that awareness of negation is direct. Hence negation as a means of knowledge is not required. It is included in perception.
Jaina Concept of Negation
Jainas like Nyāya realists admit the reality of negation as according to them difference is real. However, Jaina concept of negation is different from that of Nyāya and it
