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
Elucidation The subject of the proposition is ‘an organ of valid cognition meant for others' and 'when it is apt etc.' is the predicate. The 'conviction' stands for the knowledge of a cognizable fact. The same conviction in other persons' means emergence of the cognition of the cognizable fact in conformity with one's own conviction.
It is however knowledge of a fact which is produced in other people's mind by the knowledge of the speaker. Why should a verbal proposition be introduced as an intermediary. The purport is that the knowledge produced in other persons is effected through the instrumentality of a sentence because it is the immediate condition of such knowledge. And as such it is dubbed as an instrument of valid cognition. But a sentence also communicates the perceptual cognition and so perceptual cognition, like inference, is also said to serve the purpose of transference of knowledge.
This assertion of the instrumentality of perceptual cognition as communicable to another person constitutes originality of the author. The Buddhist accepts inference for others through the instrumentality of language and Siddhasena Divakara asserts that in this respect perceptual cognition is on a par with inference.
The Buddhist believes that perceptual cognition envisages the individual particular as a simple indeterminate fact and such a cognition cannot be produced in another person by language which necessarily means concepts and concepts are unreal construction. This contention of the Buddhist is combated in the next verse.
Text pratyakşenānumănena prasiddharthaprakaśanat / parasya tadupāyatvāt parărthatvain dvayorapi //
Translation “Perception as well as inference serves to communicate one's knowledge of a fact to others as the necessary means of the emergence of such knowledge in their minds). And so both of them should be regarded as serving the purpose of other persons." ... (XI)
Elucidation Perceptien also just like inference communicates a fact, which is cognized by it to another person. So both serving as the instr
municating one's own knowledge to another person. The particles
1. vikalpayon ayah sabda vikalpāḥ sabda yon ayah sprsantyapi / kārya kāramatā teşām nārtham sabdah sprśantyāpi //
Nyāyāvatāra vivfti, p. 44