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a jar on the table is directly known or perceived by us. Anupalabdhi or non-perception of the jar is a negative condition of the perception, and not the source of our knowledge of its non-existence. If non-perception be taken as a source of knowledge, then it must be either cognised by some other non-perception or not cognised at all On the first alternative we are landed in the fallacy of argumentum ad infinitum. On the second, non-perception becomes identical with perception, since, like perception, it is knowledge which is not produced by any other knowledge. Hence the Naiyayikas conclude that non-perception is not a separate source of knowledge, but a special case of perception.'
NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
We have already seen how the knowledge of nonexistence, which is not due to inference or any other kind of reasoning, cannot be explained by perception. A negative fact like the non-existence of a jar is not a sensible fact like the existence of the table. We do not understand how our senses can come in contact with the absence of a thing. A man says at noon that nobody came to his house in the morning. Here we cannot suppose any contact between sense and nobody. It cannot be said that we perceive the non-existence of a thing as a characteristic or quality of the locus in which it is non-existent. To know a certain locus as characterised by the absence of an object is to know beforehand what absence or nonexistence 18. Hence our primary knowledge of non-existence cannot be a perception of it as the quality of any locus, like the red colour of a rose Nor can it be said that we are immediately aware of the fact that the nonexistence of a thing is perceived What we immediately know is that we do not perceue a thing in a certain place.
1 Abhivapratyakṇasyanubhavikatvada nupalambho'pi na pramagantaram etc,
SM,
p. 502
