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Means of Valid Cognition Other Than Verbal Testimony
that not only inference but even verbal testimony, analogy etc. (i. e. the additional means of valid cognition posited by him) somehow or other necessarily presuppose a prior perception of a common feature Kumārila administers to the Buddhist a final advice to the effect that the latter must concede two positions-viz. that all means of valid cognition necessarily presuppose perception and that perception is competent to cognize a common feature (vv 172-73). Kumārila closes his discussion with an enquiry that is almost purely ontological (vv. 174-88). Thus he begins by observing that even a particular object is a common something when viewed in relation to certain other objects; e. g. colour is a particular object but it is a common something in relation to the particular colour blue etc. while blue colour itself is a common something in relation to the particular shades of blue colour-90 much so that even a dyad is a common something in relation to its constituent atoms. (vv. 174-75). So on Kumārila's showing an atom should be the only particular object that the Buddhist is entitled to speak of, and then he objects that neither is any practical dealing pos. sible in relation to atoms nor are they open to perceptual cognition--either taken singly or taken in aggregate (v. 177). The Buddhist does say that the atoms taken in aggregate become perceptible, but Kumārila feels that the position remains untenable unless it is further granted that the atoms in aggregate give rise to a new product called 'composite substance' --which wholly risides in its each and every component-part just as a 'universal' wholly resides in each and every concerned particular object (vv. 179-82). Further strengthening his owa position by saying that the Mimāṁsaka is not committed to posit the existence of an atom Kumārila ridicules the Buddhist position by saying that to deny the reality of a composite substance on the ground that atoms really exist is like denying the reality of a rabbit on the ground that a rabbit's horn really exists (vv. 183-84).
3 Analogy (upamāna)
Analogy is the fourth means of valid cognition posited by Kumārila after per ception, infernce and verbal testimony. Obviously it is not as important as these latter three and one has the impression that Kumärila defends its independent chara. cter simply because the tradition of his school so demanded. In any case, Kumārila's attention is drawn to the fact that what his school understands by analogy is something different from what is understood by it in common parlance as also something different from what is understood by it in the Nyāya school where too it is posited as an independent means of valid cognition. Thus in popular parlasce a case of analogy arises when, for examble, a townsinan enquires from a forest-dweller as to what a gavaya is like and the latter replies that it is like a cow (v. 1). Kumārila however thinks that analogy as thus understood is but a case of verbal testimony (v. 2). Then keeping in mind the Nyāya view of analogy Kumārila says that according to some a case of analogy arises when a townsman who was earlier told by a
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