Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

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

Page 61

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VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. I
nature of determinate judgement (vyavasāyatmakam) in the Nyāya theory. As we have observed before the Jaina epistemologist does not endorse indeterminate perceptual cognition. The latter-day Naiyāyikas have essayed to establish the necessity of indeterminate cognition as a prelude to perceptual judgement by a novel line of argument. They maintain that a judgement, perceptual or otherwise, necessarily involves the qualification of subject by a predicate. In the first instance, the cognition of an object and its attribute takes place without relation. For instance, the jar and its qualifying attribute say “jarhood' or fredness etc. are not integrated. The integration takes pla perceptual judgement 'the jar is red' or 'it is a jar possessed of jarhood'. Now unless there be a previous cognition of the predicative adjective
jarhood' or 'redness', the judgement will not arise as cognizant of a related whole. The knowledge of relation presupposes the cognition of the terms as its condition. The knowledge that a man is possessed of learning cannot arise, if it is not preceded by the knowledge of the adjective 'possessed of learning'. The man is not a simple unqualified individual, but one that is qualified by learning. The position is that the knowledge of a related fact is conditioned by the knowledge of the qualifying adjective. As all our perceptual cognitions are judgemental in character, they presuppose the previous knowledge of the predicate in isolation. If the conditioning knowledge were also relational and judgemental, the result would be an infinite regress. So indeterminate cognition is to be inferred as a pre-condition, though no such cognition is perceivable. In all knowledge of facts they are known as qualified by some adjectival determinations. The indeterminate cognition is thus posited though it is not known by perception.
To be brief it may be observed that this rule that the knowledge of a qualified object is preceded by the indeterminate simple cognition of the qualifying adjective in isolation is not admitted as a universal rule. If the substantive and the adjective are both amenable to the same sense-organ and so also the relation between them, it is unthinkable that they are not perceived together when the conditions of cogni. tion are alike present in respect of both. This is the position of Prabhakara, Ramānuja and Madhva who do not believe in simple indeterminate cognition and also in the existence of an object which is bereft of a qualifying attribute. The Naiyāyika also is constrained to admit that a negative judgement does not presuppose the knowledge of negation as pre-condition. There is no jar' is a negative judgement and the negation cannot be understood without reference to the object negated. So it is always judgemental and relational. The rule propounded by the Naiyāyika derives its plausibility from the previous