Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

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

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VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 1
and makes linguistic use possible. The Jaina position is that the universal (class-character) and the particular are both identical and different. It is for this reason that the plural number is used in pramanani. The different species of valid cognition have their distinctive identity and also are identical with the universal inherent in each of them.
This discussion has been introduced by the commentator Siddharşi to justifiy the use of the plural number in pramāṇāni, though the definition given in the first verse refers to valid cognition in the singular number. Now we have stated the contention of a class of logicians who think that pramānās are well-known and the definition does not give us a new insight into valid cognition and also its practical consequences. He says therefore 'the purpose and the result of such definition is not known by us' rather in a satirical vein. The implication is that it is useless since no worthwhile meaning is discerni. ble in it.
Furthermore he would pose such questions : Is the defining character definitely known or not ? If not definitely known, it will fail to achieve its purpose like the fanciful utterence of a poet or an insane person. Certainly the poet's utterences are not regulated by logical thinking and so they are as unmeaning to the philosophers as the prattle of a mad man. In this connection we may refer to the opinion of Socrates as recorded in the Dialogues of Plato. If the defining character is definitely known by means of a species of valid cognition (pramāna), the question crops up whether this pramāņa is known by another pramana or otherwise. In the latter case it will not produce any conviction since it is known to have been given by an invalid cognition (apramāņa). Again the same question will arise whether the second valid cognition has a defining character or not and what again is the source of its knowledge. Without pursuing this dialectic further and further we may sum up the opponent's position as follows: "The statement of the defining character is perfectly ineffective since the defining character cannot be determined.”
It may also be observed that if the defining character is alleged to be known by a species of valid cognition that will also not give us a new insight into the nature of the object defined, as it is known beforehand without such extraneous aid and so the statement of it in a formal definition will be as useless and infructuous as the attempt to paint a lily white.
Such is the position taken by a class of thinkers It is not an entirely hypothetical problem since we see that Nāgārjuna pursues