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Vol. XVI, No. 3 supported by another great logician of 12th Century A. D. i. c. Vādideva Suri19. He defines the term pramāna as knowledge which reveals itself and its objects, and which must be determinate, viz., sva-para. vyavas āyi-jñānań pramāņam20. Thus it may be concluded. that the logicians of 9th Century A. D. define the term as the determinate knowledge which reveals itself and the unknown objects.
Besides, Hemacandra (12th Century A.D.) in his Pramāņamimānsā suggests that pramāna is the knowledge which possess that quality to determine truely the nature of the objects viz., samyagartha-nirnayab pramiānamai. This seems to be devoid of any error. Here the word -artha-' has been included in the sense of object and the word *samyak has the sense of judgment. Thus samyak nirnaya- means judgmental right knowledge which is apart from doubt, error etc.
The definitions of pramāna, given by prominent jaina logicians if studied carefully, then we may classified those in two separate groups. The old jajna philosophers suggest that knowledge is pramāņa, which reveals itself and its objects; but Hemacandra does not support this view and he argues that knowledge is self-revealing, but it may not be identical with pramāņa. Further, he accepts that knowledge which is self-revealing includes the false ones and therefore, pramāņa may not be defined with the help of this selfrevealness. Thus Hemacandra belongs to the second group.
The logic given by Hemacandra needs some discussion. If there were no knowledge, there would be no activity directed towards objects. knowledge has such type of power to lead to an acceptance or rejection of things. In other words knowledge enable us to reject the false ones and to accept the real ones. Thus pramāna itself may be knowledge. In support of our view we may refer to vādideva Suri. In his treatise he argues that pramāņa is knowledge, because it gives us an opportunity to accept the acceptables and to reject to those which should be rejected22. Thus it may be said that there is nothing which is not coming in the sphere of knowledge.
II
In the history of Indian philosophy we have seven different views regarding the number of pramäņas. The Cārvaka system of philosophy recognises to Perception only and argues that all other means of knowledge which are accepted by other schools have no validity. The Vaišeşikas and the Buddhists opine that there are two pramāṇas i.e. Perception and Inference. The Sāṁkhya system adds Verval Testimony to the Vaisesīkas and thus they have three pramanas. The Naiyāyikas accept four means of knowledge i.e. Perception, Inference,
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