Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 18

INTRODUCTION
inference of fire from smoke is legitimate because smoke is the effect and fire is the cause. It is inconceivable that anything can happen without a cause. The proposition 'Every event has a cause' is a truism. It is the belief in causality that is responsible for advanced and scientific investigation. So if the relation between two events can be explained as one of causality their necessary concomitance will be placed on a secure footing. Secondly between two simultaneous facts if the relation is shown to be founded on identity of essence (tädātmya), necessary concomitance of the two will be understood eo ipso. All the inferences in Euclid's Geometry are instances of concomitance based on identity of essence. That the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles follows from the very nature of the triangle. Unfortunately Dharmakirti did not give instances from geometry or arithmetic (e g. two plus two make four) and this has made this topic a source of misunderstanding.
The relation of antarvyapti is thus a deduction from Dharmakirti's conception of natural concomitance (svabhavapratibandha).' It is quite plausible that Dharmakirti may have borrowed this formulation from his predecessors whose works are not available to us. But one thing creates a doubt. The Naiyayikas, the Mīmāmsakas and the Jaina logicians have sought to pick holes in the Buddhist position. They are very vocal in their protestations that there are relations other than these two which equally guarantee the universality of concomitance between the probans and the probandum. We shall briefly consider some crucial instances alleged by the non-Buddhist logicians.
The inference of the rise of one constellation from that of another, of sea-tides from the rise of the moon, the inference of shadow on the opposite side of the hill from the lighted front are cases which are neither explicable in terms of causality nor can there be a minor premiss and so on and so forth. These animadversions have been met by Buddhist logicians with convincing arguments.
The occurrence of sea-tides on the rise of the moon in the sky is governed by the relation of causality. The concatenation of causal conditions which leads to the rise of the moon furnishes the auxiliary conditions of the sea-tides. So the rise of the moon and the occurrence of sea-tides are the simultaneous co-effects of a uniform set of causal conditions. As for the shadow and the light on the opposite sides of a
1. svabhavapratibandhe hi saty artho' rtham gamayet. Nyayabindu, 2.19. tadapratibaddhasya tadavyabhicāraniyamābhavat. Ibid, 2.20. sa ca pratibandhaḥ sadhye 'rthe liñgasya. Ibid, 2.21.