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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
which explains it, i.e. from the consequence to the ground.' Thus when a man who is growing fat says that he fasts, we find an apparent contradiction between his increasing fatness and his fasting. We get out of this contradiction by the supposition that the man eats at night, because a man who fasts at day cannot grow fat unless he takes food at might. Or, a man, who is living, is not found in his house. To explain the absence of the man from his house we suppose that he is somewhere outside his house, because a living man cannot be absent from his house unless he lives outside it.
According to the Advaita Vedānta and the Bhātta Mimāınsā, arthāpatti is a separate source of knowledge, because it gives us a knowledge of facts which cannot be otherwise explained. It cannot be explained by perception, since the fact known through arthāpattı is not perceived by us. That the fat inan eats at night is not a matter of perception for us. Nor can we explain this knowledge by inference According to the Advaitins, arthūpatti is not an inference It cannot be reduced to anvayı inference, because there is no anvaya or agreement in presence between fatness and eating at night as between smoke and fire We cannot say that wherever there is fatness there is eating at night, just as we can say that wherever there is smoke there is fire. Nor can arthāpatti be reduced to vyatıreki inference, because there is no such thing as vyatireki inference Further, the direct report of our consciousness is against the supposition that arthāpatta is an interence. In anuvyavasāya or introspection of the knowledge by arthāpattı we do not feel to have 'inferred' anything, but simply to have supposed or presumed something in order to explain something else?
1 Upapådyajøå goda upa pådakajbánato arthấpattıls, etc , VP, Ch V. Arthåputti. rapi drøtah bruto va 'rtho'nyatbā nopapadyata ityarthakalpana, SD, p 76
VP , Ch V
