________________
FACTORS OF VALID KNOWLEDGE
81
second way, however, is generally accepted in Western philosophy. According to this, there are as many kinds of knowledge as there are ways of knowing or specific grounds of knowledge. The Nyāya follows this way along with the Vedānta and some other Indian systems. It shows also that a distinction of knowledge into different kinds cannot be based on the subject or the object of knowledge. The conclusion drawn from this and other facts is that pramāņa or the method is the operative cause of knowledge (pramā. karanai).
The second consideration, on wbich the superiority of pramāņa to the other factors of valıd knowledge is based, is this. The primary function of knowledge is to give us truth in the sense of real correspondence between idea and object (arthavattvam). Now for the fulfilment of this function knowledge is primarily and directly dependent on pramāņa or the operative cause of knowledge. The other factors of knowledge cannot lead to truth except through the aid of pramāna The objective validity of knowledge is directly dependent on the efficacy of the method or prumāna employed to acquire it. The subject or pramātā cannot directly produce the validity of knowledge, because as an agent it requires means to bring about a result and cannot itself directly produce the result. Nor can the object or prameya be said to produce the state of valid knowledge, for in inference the object is absent and cannot, therefore, be operative in producing a knowledge of itself in the knowing subject. It may, of course, be said that once we have the truth, we find it as belonging to the subject, the object and the knowledge-relation between the two. Still the subject, the object and the state of knowledge do not produce the truth, but owe it to the functioning of
pramıtırtyarthavanti bhavantı, NB.,
1 Arthavati ca pramane pramåtă prameya 1.1.1.
11
