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. İ
defining character is both identical and different. The incongruence of identity with difference is the creation of abstract logic and as it is endorsed by incontestable experience, the concept of identity and of difference must be held to be not absolute but partial and not mutually exclusive.
This line of argument is not a new-fangled procedure. Dharmakirti also observes regarding the question of validity of pramaņas that definitions in a scientific treatise are given to combat the false notion of the persons who want to be enlightened.1 Dharmakīrti is also not the first philosopher to offer this explanation. Katyayana; the author of the Vartika on Papini's grammar, also makes the same observation on the necessity and utility of scientific investigation.2
Now the definition of perceptual cognition and also of extraperceptual cognition is given in the following karika.
Text
aparokṣatayarthasya grāhakam jñānamīdṛśam/ pratyakṣamitarajjñeyam parokşam grahanekṣayā//
Translation
"Perceptual cognition is such a cognition of an object which apprehends it as directly presented. A (discursive) cognition other than this is to be known as indirect (non-perceptual) on account of its comprehension (of an object existing outside the range of senseperception)." (IV)
Elucidation
Perceptual cognition (pratyaksa) is here the subject (laksya) and the rest, viz "a cognition which...directly presented" is the defining characteristic (lakṣaṇa). In other words, perceptual cognition is one which directly and immediately, that is to say without intervention of any other cognition, takes stock of the object lying ahead. The qualifying clause aparokşataya etc. in the kārikā is not to be taken in its literal sense
1. sastram mohanivartanam - Pramanavaritika, I. 7; Vide also the commentary of Manorathanandi.
2. kimartham sastramiti cen nivartakatvāt siddham. The Bhasya on it reads: nivartakam sastram.
katham?
mrjirasmayavisesenopadistah. tasya sarvatra mrjibuddhiḥ prasaktā, tatranena nivṛttiḥ kriyate mrjer akñitsu pratyayesu mrjeḥ prasange marjiḥ sādhur bhavatīti. -Vyakaraṇamahābhāṣye navāhnikam 1.1.3. (vṛddhiradaie), p. 167.