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254 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY implies a motive operating subsequent to cognition, viz. to attain what is liked or to avoid what is disliked. In its absence, knowledge may remain without a practical consequence, but its logical validity cannot on that account be questioned.
(2) Inference (Anumāna). The conception of vyāpti here is much widened when compared with that in Buddhism. Thus we can reason not only from smoke to fire, but also from the cloven hoof to the horns-features which, so far as we know, are not necessarily related: (p. 201). An attempt seems to have been made by the Buddhists to bring cases of the latter kind also under causation. It is quite possible that the association between the 'cloven hoof' and 'horns' is a necessary one, though how it is so is not known to us. Yet the Nyāya-Vaišeșika on principle postulates invariable concomitance as the criterion of vyāpti, adducing as the reason therefor that even supposing that the features in question are causally related, a person that connects them inductively is not conscious of that relation when he does so. To the Cārvāka contention that neither the universals nor the particulars can be thus related (p. 189), the NyāyaVaiseșika reply is that the relation is between the particulars but as belonging to a class. The justification for this view is found in the recognition of universals as a separate objective category and in the belief that through the apprehension of a universal all the corresponding particulars are in some sense apprehended (alaukika-pratyaksa).
Gautama refers to a triple classification of inference. The terms denoting the three classes-pūrvavat, sesavat and sămânyatodrşta-are ambiguous and they have been so from the time of Vätsyāyana. The classification in itself is not very important; but we shall refer to one of the explanations given by Vätsyāyana, for it brings out very well a characteristic feature of inference as understood in the system. According to it, pūrvavat stands for reasoning based
Hence the more comprehensive terms of linga ('sign') and lingin (the signified') are generally used here for the middle and major terms in preference to hetu and sādhya, which are applicable strictly to cases based on causation.
PP. P. 67.
