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UPAMANA AS INDEPENDENT PRAMANA
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of a certain animal resembling the cow. This gives us a knowledge of the animal's similarity to the cow, which is undoubtedly perceptual in character, since it is due to sense-object contact. Thirdly, there is the knowledge that the word gavaya denotes animals of the same class as this particular animal now observed. This last cognition is wrongly supposed by the Naiyāyikas to be due to upamāna But it is really an inferential cognition based on the knowledge of vyāpti or a universal relation between the word gavaya and animals resembling the cow. The inference may be put in the form of the following syllogism :
All animals resembling the cow are gavayas ; This is an animal resembling the cow ; Therefore this is a gavaya.
As against the above attempt to reduce upamāna to inserence, it has been pointed out by the Navyāyikas that the knowledge of the denotation of a word, which upamāna aims at, is possible without the knowledge of vyāptı or a universal relation between two terms. An argument by upamāna or comparison does not consist in an inductive generalisation and its application to a new case. It consists in the application of a class-concept to some objects because they fit in with a given description. Upamāna being thus possible without the knowledge of vyāpti cannot be reduced to inference which is never possible without a knowledge of vyāpti or universal relation between two things. Further, there is an unmistakable difference between the forms of the cognitions in inference and upamāna. In upamāna the resulting cognition is always expressed in terms of likeness, etc., while an inferential cognition is expressed in terms of the relation of ground and consequence. In inference the introspective consciousness is a feeling of the 'therefore
