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A SOURCE-BOOK IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
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is called sādrsa pratyabhijñāna as it is based on similarity. But we can recognise the distinction between the buffalow and the cow. It would be recognition based on the point of dissimilarity. Therefore, it is "vaisādrsa pratyabhijñāna''. Pratyabhijñāna is recognition arrived at through the process of perceptional memory. Similarly, all relational cognition like the statements : this is near, this is far, he is taller, and the elderer etc., are all forms of recognition.
The Buddhists maintain that nothing is permanent in the world. Everything is fleeting. Therefore, nothing continues to remain from the past. Pratyabhijñāna cannot be considered as a pramāna. Because, it is said to be cognition which proceeds from the past to the present. But as a thing is not possible and there is no continuity of thing, there cannot be a cognition of the past in the present. The past cognition has been destroyed. The present cognition has no reference to the past. Therefore, recognition cannot present the past cognition into the present. Pratyabhijñāna would include two cognitions. One refers to “that which was experienced in the past", & the other cognition refers “this which is actually experienced now". These two cannot become one cognition. Therefore, the Buddhists do not consider recgonition as a pramāņa. The other systems of Indian philosophy like Nyāya, Vaiseșika and Mimärhsakas, say that pratyabhijñāna is a valid cognition, but it is a form of perception and it can be included in the pratyakşa. But the Jainas contend that the Buddhist view of pratyabhijñāna as two separate cognitions and therefore not a pramāņa and the view of other systems of philosophy making praryabhijñāna as a from of perception are both inadequate. Pratyakşa has a reference to cognition of the present. Memory refers to the cognition of the past event, but pratyabhijñāna gives a synthesis of the cognition of the present with the recollection of the past incident. Therefore, it is a pramāna and is a valid source of knowledge. It is a paroksa pramāņa.
TARKA (HYPOTHETICAL REASONING) -1 Tarka is hypothetical reasoning. It is conditioned reasoning.1
1. Pramānamimārsā 1, 2.
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