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. I
all cognitions falls to the ground. Moreover error is a relative term and can be understood in contradistinction to valid cognition, Judged from every possible angle of vision, the idealist's assertion is riddled with self-contradiction. It follows as the corollary from this probe into the idealist's assertion that a cognition which defintiely knows itself and its object and is not contradicted by another experience must be accepted as a veritable valid cognition. The validity of the cognition again proves eo ipso the objective truth of the two poles of cognition, the selfcognition and the cognition of the object. To be explicit, the knowing cognition which has a necessary reference to the object proves that cognition and object both are true. The existence of cognition is established by self-awareness (svasamvedana) and that of the object on pain of absurdity. A cognition without an object is an impossibility.
the existence of both (subject and object) must be accepted as the necessary presupposition of valid cognition. The denial of the truth of the object thus ends in the denial of the validity of the cognition which is alone accepted as true by the idealist They sail in the same boat and must swim or sink together.
Now the author has dealt with subjective inference, that is to say, inference undertaken for one's own conviction and has also confuted the allegation of erroneousness of such arguments and their advocates. The treatment of syllogistic argument which is undertaken for the edification of other persons should come next in due order. But the author defers this topic for subsequent treatment and proposes to deal with the verbal testimony and its definition since the discussion will occupy lesser time and space, and also because the syllogistic
inference involves verbal statement, and the consideration of the larger number of problems connected with the latter.
Text drstesjávya hatad vakyāt paramarthabhidhãyinah tattvagrāhitayotpannam manam sabdam prakirtitarn //
Translation «Verbal testimony has been described (by a long succession of past teachers) as a species of valid cognition which is produced by a sentence apt to communicate its true meaning and is apprehended as cognizant of such truth provided that the meaning intended is uncon. tradicted by an observed fact." ... (VIII)
Elucidation
Here 'verbal testimony' is the subject which is to be defined, and the rest gives the defining characteristic. An obseryed fact' means