Nyaya Theory of Knowledge

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

Page 90

VALID KNOWLEDGE AND ITS METHOD 71 The Prābbākara Mimaṁsā defines pramā or valid knowledge as immediate experience (anubhūti). It is different from memory which is due solely to the impressions of past experiences. All immediate experiences have intrinsic validity. There cannot be any question as to the validity of immediate experience, because that is self-evident. Memory however is mediate knowledge, being conditioned by past experience. Hence the truth of knowledge (prämānya) is guaranteed by its having the character of immediacy.'
The Naiyāyıkas bring forward the charge of inconsistency against the Prābhākara definition of pramā. If all cognitions are valid hy themselves, there is no justification for treating memory-cognition as invalid on the ground that it is not immediate experience. It is also curious that the Prābhākaras take memory as valıd so far as the manifestation of knowledge and the knower is concerned, but invalid with regard to the manifestation of the object. According to them, every cognition is a triune manifestation (triputīsamvit). It manifests the subject, the object and itself at one and the same time. Memory as a cognition is valid so far as it manifests the knower and itseli (ūtmasvātma), but invalıd so far as it manifests the object (vedya). But there is no sense in this invidious distinction Either memory 18 wholly valid or it is not valid at all. Further, it is difficult to see what anubhūtı or immediate experience really means. It can not mean such knowledge as is not conditioned in its origin by some other knowledge. If it did, savikalpaka or determinate perception and inference would become invalid, since these depend on previous experience. Other possible meanings of anubhūti also do not stand scrutiny. So the
1 Pramanamaanbhūtih så smrteranya, etc , Prakaranapancakā, p. 42.