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PORVA-MIMAMSA
321 well remain in his house as elsewhere. Nor can 'not being in his house' by itself take that place, since that reason may equally properly lead to the conclusion that Devadatta is no longer alive. So we are forced to view the middle term as formed by combining both these-being alive' and 'not being at home. But in this combined form it involves a reference to what is to be established through the inference viz. that Devadatta is somewhere outside his house. That is, the conclusion is already included in the middle term which is never the case in inference. We might add another reason: while in inference the ground the fact of smoke') is explained by the conclusion ('fire'), here the ground being alive and not being found in the house') explains the conclusion ('being elsewhere').The truth is that arthāpatti is disjunctive reasoning and is not syllogistic in the ordinary sense of the expression. If we reduce it to the syllogistic form, the major premise will be a negative universal referring to things beyond the universe of discourse, and it therefore ceases to be significant. In this connection it may be stated that, unlike the Naiyāyikas, the Mimāṁsakas of both the schools reject the negative universal as the major premise in a syllogism. They consider that it can generally be expressed in a positive form. The scope for arthāpatti is just where it cannot be so expressed.
(6) Non-apprehension (anupalabdhi).3—This is the specific pramāņa by which negation, not nothing, is known, e.g. the absence of a jar or of atoms somewhere. Like the Nyāya (p. 237), the Bhāțța school of Mimämsā admits negative facts (abhāva): but, unlike it (p. 249), it formulates a separate pramāna for knowing them. The word anupalabdhi means the 'absence of apprehension,' i.e. the absence of knowledge derived through any of the five foregoing pramāņas. This means that, as knowledge got through any of the pramānas points to the existence (bhāva) of objects, the absence of such knowledge indicates, other conditions remaining the same, their non-existence (abhāva). Only it should be remembered that the absence, to serve as the index of nonexistence, must be aided by the mental presentation of the
SV. p. 455, st. 19 ff. NM. p. 41. 3 SD. Pp. 83-7.
