Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

Author(s): S C Chateerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta

Page 75

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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
due to any influence of the object, or because the impressions (saņskāra), out of which it arises, are not immediately antecedent to it in every case. On the other hand, perception, inference, comparison (upamāna) and testimony are all cases of anubhava or presentational knowledge. That sense-perception is so, will be generally admitted. But inference and the rest also are, according to the Nyāya, presentational cognitions. Even prātıbha or intuitive knowledge of future events is regarded as a perception due to the object itself. The Nyāya holds that each of these is a cognition of some objective facts and is conditioned by those facts. Memory being only a reproduction of past experience cannot be said to be due to its object and is, therefore, other than presentational knowledge (anubhava).'
Hence the Nyāya definition of pramā or valid knowledge comes to this. Pramā is a presentational cognition (anubhara), in which there are a characterisation, in thought, of the object as it is in reality (yathārtha), and a definite assurance of its being objectively valid (asardigdha).
2. Definition of pramāņa or the method of knowledge
Pramāņa derivatively means the instrument of valid knowledge (pramāyāḥ karanam). Hence, generally speaking, we may say that pramāna is the means or source of right knowledge. It is that which gives us valid knowledge, and only valid knowledge of objects. So it has been said : “ There cannot be any right understanding of things except by means of pramāņa. A subject arrives at the valid knowledge of objects by means of pramāņa, for the existence and nature of objects are to be ascertained only by such
1 NM., p 23; TR & 88., pp. 9-11