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Means of Valid Cognition Other Than Verbal Testimony
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sub-mission is that evea soul-manas contact is operative in relation to that very object which happens to be the object of perceptual cognition (v. 66). And on this question his general verdict Kumārila conveys to the Buddhist in the form of the following address : “You say that the means and the 'resultant' not having to do with one and the same thing is like an axe falling on one tree and cutting taking place in another, but then the 'means' and the resultant' being one and the same thing is like an axe and cutting being one and the same things (v. 75).” In the chaper on inference Kumārila declares that in relation to inferential cognition the means could be either the probans or the cognition of probans or the relation of invariable concomitance or the memory of this relation-all these being operativo in relation to that very object which happens to be the object of inferential cognition (vv. 51-52).
Having thus disposed of Kumārila's treatment of two preliminary questions of Logic we take up for consideration bis treatment of the means of valid cognition other than verbal testimony. As already noted, such means are five, viz. perception (pratyakşa), inference (anumāna), analogy (upamāna), implication (arthāpatti), absence (abhäva). We consider them one by one.
1. Perception (Pratyaksa) Kumärila's treatment of perception is in essence a treatment of the following five topics :
(i) Denying the possibility of suprasensuous perception. (ii). Defending the possibility of indeterminate perception. (iii) Defending the possibility of determinate perception.
(iv) Arguing that the object of sense-perception can be unitary despite the multiplicity of sense-organs perceiving it.
(v) Arguing that the words are not superimposed on the things cognized through them.
As we shall see, in the case of each topic Kumärila was polemizing against a view prevalent in his times. So let us consider them one by one.
(i) Why No Snprasensuous Perception
(vv. 1-53, 84-111) The occasion for taking up this topic arose because of certain textual problems faced by Kumärila. Thus the author of Mimāmsāsūtra had said first that perceptual cognition which possesses such and such a characteristie is incapable of yielding information about religious matters and then that verbal testimony which possesses $-7
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