A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 by Surendranath Dasgupta (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

392

making the presumption that he is outside the house, for he might also be dead. But I know that Devadatta was living and also that he was not at home; this perception of his absence from home creates a doubt as regards my first knowledge that he is living, and it is for the removal of this doubt that there creeps in the presumption that he must be living somewhere else. The perception of the absence of Devadatta through the intermediate link of a doubt passes into the notion of a presumption that he must then remain somewhere else. In inference there is no element of doubt, for it is only when the smoke is perceived to exist beyond the least element of doubt that the inference of the fire is possible, but in presumption the perceived non-existence in the house leads to the presumption of an external existence only when it has thrown the fact of the man's being alive into doubt and uncertainty [Footnote ref 1].

Kumârila however objects to this explanation of Prabhâkara, and says that if the fact that Devadatta is living is made doubtful by the absence of Devadatta at his house, then the doubt may as well be removed by the supposition that Devadatta is dead, for it does not follow that the doubt with regard to the life of Devadatta should necessarily be resolved by the supposition of his being outside the house. Doubt can only be removed when the cause or the root of doubt is removed, and it does not follow that because Devadatta is not in the house therefore he is living. If it was already known that Devadatta was living and his absence from the house creates the doubt, how then can the very fact which created the doubt remove the doubt? The cause of doubt cannot be the cause of its removal too. The real procedure of the presumption is quite the other way. The doubt about the life of Devadatta being removed by previous knowledge or by some other means, we may presume that he must be outside the house when he is found absent from the house. So there cannot be any doubt about the life of Devadatta. It is the certainty of his life associated with the perception of his absence from the house that leads us to the presumption of his external existence. There is an opposition between the life of Devadatta and his absence from the house, and the mind cannot come to rest without the presumption of his external existence. The mind oscillates between two contradictory poles both of which it accepts but

__________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: See Prakara@napañcikâ, pp. 113-115.]

393

cannot reconcile, and as a result of that finds an outlet and a reconciliation in the presumption that the existence of Devadatta must be found outside the house.

Well then, if that be so, inference may as well be interpreted as presumption. For if we say that we know that wherever there is smoke there is fire, and then perceive that there is smoke in the hill, but no fire, then the existence of the smoke becomes irreconcilable, or the universal proposition of the concomitance of smoke with fire becomes false, and hence the presumption that there is fire in the hill. This would have been all right if the universal concomitance of smoke with fire could be known otherwise than by inference. But this is not so, for the concomitance was seen only in individual cases, and from that came the inference that wherever there is smoke there is fire. It cannot be said that the concomitance perceived in individual cases suffered any contradiction without the presumption of the universal proposition (wherever there is smoke there is fire); thus arthâpatti is of no avail here and inference has to be accepted. Now when it is proved that there are cases where the purpose of inference cannot be served by arthâpatti, the validity of inference as a means of proof becomes established. That being done we admit that the knowledge of the fire in the hill may come to us either by inference or by arthâpatti.

So inference also cannot serve the purpose of arthâpatti, for in inference also it is the hetu (reason) which is known first, and later on from that the sâdhya (what is to be proved); both of them however cannot be apprehended at the same moment, and it is exactly this that distinguishes arthâpatti from anumâna. For arthâpatti takes place where, without the presumption of Devadatta's external existence, the absence from the house of Devadatta who is living cannot be comprehended. If Devadatta is living he must exist inside or outside the house. The mind cannot swallow a contradiction, and hence without presuming the external existence of Devadatta even the perceived non-existence cannot be comprehended. It is thus that the contradiction is resolved by presuming his existence outside the house. Arthâpatti is thus the result of arthânupapatti or the contradiction of the present perception with a previously acquired certain knowledge.

It is by this arthâpattipramâ@na that we have to admit that there is a special potency in seeds by which they produce the

394

shoots, and that a special potency is believed to exist in sacrifices by which these can lead the sacrificer to Heaven or some such beneficent state of existence.

S'abda pramâ@na.

S'abda or word is regarded as a separate means of proof by most of the recognized Indian systems of thought excepting the Jaina, Buddhist, Cârvâka and Vais`e@sika. A discussion on this topic however has but little philosophical value and I have therefore omitted to give any attention to it in connection with the Nyâya, and the Sâ@mkhya-Yoga systems. The validity and authority of the Vedas were acknowledged by all Hindu writers and they had wordy battles over it with the Buddhists who denied it. Some sought to establish this authority on the supposition that they were the word of God, while others, particularly the Mîmâ@msists strove to prove that they were not written by anyone, and had no beginning in time nor end and were eternal. Their authority was not derived from the authority of any trustworthy person or God. Their words are valid in themselves. Evidently a discussion on these matters has but little value with us, though it was a very favourite theme of debate in the old days of India. It was in fact the most important subject for Mîmâ@msâ, for the Mîmâ@msâ sûtras were written for the purpose of laying down canons for a right interpretation of the Vedas. The slight extent to which it has dealt with its own epistemological doctrines has been due solely to their laying the foundation of its structure of interpretative maxims, and not to writing philosophy for its own sake. It does not dwell so much upon salvation as other systems do, but seeks to serve as a rational compendium of maxims with the help of which the Vedas may be rightly understood and the sacrifices rightly performed. But a brief examination of the doctrine of word (s'abda) as a means of proof cannot be dispensed with in connection with Mîmâ@msâ as it is its very soul.

S'abda (word) as a pramâ@na means the knowledge that we get about things (not within the purview of our perception) from relevant sentences by understanding the meaning of the words of which they are made up. These sentences may be of two kinds, viz. those uttered by men and those which belong to the Vedas. The first becomes a valid means of knowledge when it is not

395

uttered by untrustworthy persons and the second is valid in itself. The meanings of words are of course known to us before, and cannot therefore be counted as a means of proof; but the meanings of sentences involving a knowledge of the relations of words cannot be known by any other acknowledged means of proof, and it is for this that we have to accept s`abda as a separate means of proof. Even if it is admitted that the validity of any sentence may be inferred on the ground of its being uttered by a trustworthy person, yet that would not explain how we understand the meanings of sentences, for when even the name or person of a writer or speaker is not known, we have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of any sentence.

Prabhâkara thinks that all sounds are in the form of letters, or are understandable as combinations of letters. The constituent letters of a word however cannot yield any meaning, and are thus to be regarded as elements of auditory perception which serve as a means for understanding the meaning of a word. The reason of our apprehension of the meaning of any word is to be found in a separate potency existing in the letters by which the denotation of the word may be comprehended. The perception of each letter-sound vanishes the moment it is uttered, but leaves behind an impression which combines with the impressions of the successively dying perceptions of letters, and this brings about the whole word which contains the potency of bringing about the comprehension of a certain meaning. If even on hearing a word the meaning cannot be comprehended, it has to be admitted that the hearer lacks certain auxiliaries necessary for the purpose. As the potency of the word originates from the separate potencies of the letters, it has to be admitted that the latter is the direct cause of verbal cognition. Both Prabhâkara and Kumârila agree on this point.

Another peculiar doctrine expounded here is that all words have natural denotative powers by which they themselves out of their own nature refer to certain objects irrespective of their comprehension or non-comprehension by the hearer. The hearer will not understand the meaning unless it is known to him that the word in question is expressive of such and such a meaning, but the word was all along competent to denote that meaning and it is the hearer's knowledge of that fact that helps him to

396

understand the meaning of a word. Mîmâmsâ does not think that the association of a particular meaning with a word is due to conventions among people who introduce and give meanings to the words [Footnote ref 1]. Words are thus acknowledged to be denotative of themselves. It is only about proper names that convention is admitted to be the cause of denotation. It is easy to see the bearing of this doctrine on the self-validity of the Vedic commandments, by the performance of which such results would arise as could not have been predicted by any other person. Again all words are believed to be eternally existent; but though they are ever present some manifestive agency is required by which they are manifested to us. This manifestive agency consists of the effort put forth by the man who pronounces the word. Nyâya thinks that this effort of pronouncing is the cause that produces the word while Mîmâm@sâ thinks that it only manifests to the hearer the ever-existing word.

The process by which according to Prabhâkara the meanings of words are acquired maybe exemplified thus: a senior commands a junior to bring a cow and to bind a horse, and the child on noticing the action of the junior in obedience to the senior's commands comes to understand the meaning of "cow" and "horse." Thus according to him the meanings of words can only be known from words occurring in injunctive sentences; he deduces from this the conclusion that words must denote things only as related to the other factors of the injunction (anvitâbhidhâna vâda), and no word can be comprehended as having any denotation when taken apart from such a sentence. This doctrine holds that each word yields its meaning only as being generally related to other factors or only as a part of an injunctive sentence, thus the word gâm accusative case of go (cow) means that it is intended that something is to be done with the cow or the bovine genus, and it appears only as connected with a specific kind of action, viz. bringing in the sentence gâm ânaya—bring the cow. Kumârila however thinks that words independently express separate meanings which are subsequently combined into a sentence expressing one connected idea (abhihitânvayavâda). Thus in gâm ânaya, according to Kumârila, gâm means the bovine class in the accusative character and ânaya independently means

___________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: According to Nyâya God created all words and associated them with their meanings.]

397

bring; these two are then combined into the meaning "bring the cow." But on the former theory the word gâm means that it is connected with some kind of action, and the particular sentence only shows what the special kind of action is, as in the above sentence it appears as associated with bringing, but it cannot have any meaning separately by itself. This theory of Kumârila which is also the Nyâya theory is