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NYAYA-VAISESIKA
259 from the logical standpoint between the two systems in regard to their attitude towards the Veda.
(4) Comparison (Upamāna).This is commonly rendered as 'analogy' in English, but the student should be careful not to confound it with reasoning by analogy. We shall best explain what the Nyāya means by it by taking an example. Suppose we are familiar with an object X and there is another object Y resembling it. Suppose also that while we do not know Y, we have been informed of its resemblance to X by one who knows both. Now if the object Y is casually presented to us, we notice the resemblance in question, and recollecting what we have been told we at once come to know that that is the object which bears the name Y. It is this connection between a name and the thing it signifies that forms the sole sphere of upamāna here; and it is so called because it arises through the previous knowledge of resemblance between two things. The immediate cause (karana) of the knowledge that Y is the object bearing a certain name is the perception of Y after one has learnt that it resembles X. The scope of the pramāna is quite narrow. Yet in practice it is very useful, as for instance in teaching where explanations accompanied by apt illustrations help us in extending our acquaintance with language.
In treating of perception, we referred to the nature of truth as understood in the system. It is such knowledge as represents reality faithfully. There are two other points of an allied character, usually considered in Indian philosophy, to which we have hitherto alluded only incidentally (p. 210). As it is judgments that are true, we may view truth to be a property of the savikalpaka form of knowledge; but it does not appear to be essential to it. Hence a question arises as to how knowledge comes to be true. We know the manner in which knowledge arises according to the Nyāya-Vai esika, though it is hard to understand how when the aids to its
1 It is instructive to note in this connection that in all probability the belief neither in God nor in the Veda was originally a part of the Nyāya-Vaiseșika teaching.
Tadvati tat-prakärakam jñānam prama: TS. p. 23; Kärikävali. st.
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