Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 47

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT.
41
Illustrations.
(a) This hill is full of fire, because it is full of smoke.
(b) The horns of a hare are non-existent, because no one has ever seen them.
(c) Man is the master of his destiny, because he has the power to control his actions.
[Illustration (a) is an instance of the pramá na prasiddha dharmi, because this hill' (dharmi) is the immediate object of preception.
The dharmi of illustration (b) is vikalpa prasiddha because the horns of a hare, (dharmi), being purely imaginary, can never be established by pratyakşa or any other kind of pramána.
The dharmi of the third illustration is pramâna-vikalpa prasiddha, because it (man) includes those who are the object of pratyaksa as well as those that are vikalpa prasiddha.]
CHAPTER XXI. Parárthanumâna means the knowledge of sadhya from its sâdhana arising in the mind* in conse
* Some logicians hold the speaker's word itself to be the parárthánumâna, but this is not correct, for the speech of another may be the occasion for knowledge or inference, but is never so itself. The real basis of inference in parârthânumâna, as in svarthânumâna, is the logical connection (vyapti) between the sadhana and its sadhya. Suppose we hear some one say: 'there is fire in this hill, because there is smoke on it.' The statement fulfils all the requirements of a valid syllogism so far as the speaker himself is concerned, but it is obviously little or no better than verbal testimony for the hearer, for unless his own mind lend assent to the proposition, he cannot be said to have drawn an inference,