________________
96
NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
Lastly, the Nyāya discusses the sceptical contention that there cannot be any valid knowledge. By valid knowledge 18 meant such knowledge of objects as is due to some method of knowledge (pramāņa). But how is knowledge related to its object in the order of time? Does it precede or succeed or synchronize with the existence of its object (prameya) ? Knowledge cannot be said to precede its object, since no knowledge appears except as the knowledge of some object. Nor can we say that knowledge succeeds or follows its object. A thing becomes an object to us in so far as it is known. There can be no object which is not the object of some knowledge. Without knowledge there is no object. If a thing can be an object independently of knowledge, there is no need of a method of knowledge for it. Nor again can we say that knowledge and the objects of knowledge co-exist in time. If that were so, all objects of the world will be known at the same time, and there can be no desire to increase our knowledge of things. Further, this will contradict the Nyāya view of tbe serial order of cognitions, from which the existence of manas or the internal sense is inferred. Hence it follows that there can be neither knowledge nor a method of knowledge (pramāna). 1
This is the sceptical objection against the possibility of knowledge as such. It denies the possibility of knowledge on the ground that the reference of knowledge to its object is inexplicable in the order of time. To this we may of course say with Green that, even if knowledge be taken as an event in time, its reference to the object is timeless, 80 that the question of the temporal relation between knowledge and its object does not arise. The Naiyāyikas, however, admit that knowledge refers to its object in the order of time. But they point out that the temporal order
1 NB., 2. 1. 8-11.
