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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c26: Chapter XVIII. The Origin and Development of Buddhist Logic

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c26

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Chapter XVIII. The Origin and Development of Buddhist Logic

1. Logic in the Hīnayāna

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Of logical theory the earlier Canon has not a trace; the Buddha is a reasoner whose interlocutors are not his match; his weapons against them, beside his authority, are analogy, simile, parable, and an occasional trace of induction by simple enumeration of cases; definition and division are prominent by their absence. We hear of men skilled in logic or sophistry and reasoning, but there is nothing to show that they had a science of any sort. Exception must, however, be made for Sañjaya of the Belaṭṭha clan; he seems as an agnostic to have been the first to formulate the four possibilities of existence, non-existence, both, and neither, and Buddha in the indeterminates makes lavish use of this device. But of conscious consideration of this principle we have nothing, nor was anything to be expected from a teacher whose aim was to steer a middle path between affirmation and negation, and was therefore by no means likely to develop a logic of non-contradiction.

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The later texts were doubtless contemporaneous with the beginnings of logical study; the *Milindapañha* may allude to logicians, though the reference is but vague; it records the traditional mode of discussion, distinction and counter-distinction being drawn and errors unravelled, but in method it differs not at all from the Canon.¹ A difference appears in the late *Abhidhamma Piṭaka*. In the *Kathāvatthu* we find the technical terms, Upanaya, for minor premiss in an argument, Niggamana for the conclusion Pariññā for the proposition, and we may suppose a contemporary logic, but nothing of it is said.¹ The method, followed however, is interesting; it runs: Q. Is A B? A. Yes. Q. Is C D? A. No. Q. But if A be B, then C is D. That B can be affirmed of A, but not D of C, is false. Hence your first answer is refuted. In the inverse (paṭiloma) method we have: If D be denied of C, then B should have been denied of A. (But you affirmed B of A.) Therefore that B can be affirmed of A but not D of C is wrong. There are further developments, but of the same type; the logical clearness is not at all adequate.² In the Yamaka again the distribution of terms is known and the process of conversion is elaborately illustrated, but without trace of appreciation of logical theory. The Paṭisambhidāmagga³ deals with analytical insight into words and things, grammatical analysis, and insight into those processes, but it is quite valueless as logical theory. But, what is far more important, the Abhidhamma has not, despite the intention of the work to contain definitions of conceptions, any theory or effective practice of definition. The Nettipakaraṇa shows some advance in this regard, but it is only in Buddhaghosa that we find the fourfold style of definition as essential mark, property, resulting phenomenon, and proximate antecedent.⁴ Thus mind is defined as following the sense impression, as having the essential mark of cognizing sights, sounds, &c., as the property of receiving the same, the resulting phenomenon of truth, and as its proximate antecedent the vanishing of the sense impression. Buddhaghosa shows also some understanding of the principles of identity, contradiction, and excluded middle.

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¹ Keith, ILA., pp. 13 f. ; Mil., pp. 28 ff.

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¹ Points of Controversy, pp. xlviii f., 377 f.; Vibhaṅga, pp. 293 ff.

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² e. g. KV. i. 6. 55, ‘past is existent’ is converted to ‘all existent is past’.

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³ cf. Geiger, PD., p. 62.

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⁴ That Buddhist logic knew in Asoka’s time the terms and forms of syllogism (Dasgupta, Ind. Phil. i. 157) is a misreading of Aung’s statement in Points of Controversy, p. 1. On definition cf. Compendium, pp. 2, 7.

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In northern India Buddhism must have grown up amid an eager logical activity, but we have scanty available records; the forms of reasoning employed by Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu are recorded on Chinese authority, but it would be premature to draw any definite conclusion from them as to their logical competence. With Maitreya, at any rate, argument does not seem to have advanced beyond the simple procedure from example, e.g. sound is non-eternal, because it is a product, like a pot, but not like ether.¹

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¹ ILA., p. 108. The name is usually a pious fraud for Asaṅga; Lévi, MSA. ii. 7 f.

2. Dignāga

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The date of the great Buddhist logician Dignāga is still uncertain, though there are grounds on which he may be assigned to not later than A.D. 400, and in any event a much later date is out of the question. His services to logic are difficult to estimate precisely, because a vital question is involved of his relative priority or posteriority to the Vaiçeṣika authority, Praçastapāda, in whom appear very important changes in the logical doctrines hitherto professed in the Nyāya and Vaiçeṣika schools. Reasons for the probable priority of Dignāga have been advanced elsewhere;² the suggestion that these innovations of Praçastapāda are in fact to be found in Kaṇāda is clearly erroneous;³ the logic of Kaṇāda is unquestionably primitive, and would have been very different had it been inspired by the much more mature ideas which appear quite openly in Praçastapāda. There remains, however, the possibility of derivation of both advances in Buddhism and in the Nyāya-Vaiçeṣika from a school not yet known to us.

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² ILA., pp. 93 ff.; Ui, VP., p. 17, n. 3. He is said to have been a pupil of Vasubandhu.

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³ Dasgupta, Ind. Phil. i. 351. That Kaṇāda is pre-Buddhistic (i. 280) is quite impossible.

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As a philosopher Dignāga appears a champion of Vijñānavāda idealism, but his work on logic is interesting, because it is inspired by other than epistemological and metaphysical considerations; from his logical works, so far as known from Dharmakīrti, it would be impossible to learn precisely his conception of reality.⁴ But we know that in perception he distinguished sharply between the element of sensation and imagination; each idea requires both sensation and the activity of the imagination to give any result;

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⁴ His Vijñānavāda position appears clearly in his Ālambanaparīkṣā (preserved in Tibetan); Poussin, JRAS. 1903, ii. 383, n. 2. On logic we have in Tibetan his Pramāṇasamuccaya; Hetucakraḍamaru; Trikālaparīkṣā; and his or Çaṅkarasvāmin's Nyāyapraveça (Ui, VP., p. 68, n. 2); see MSIL., pp. 82 ff.

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the mere percept is inexpressible and a momentary experience, which imagination presents as a series of moments (kṣaṇa-saṃtāna), and therefore capable of expression. This view is already attacked by Praçastapāda, without naming its author, whose identity with Dignāga is affirmed by Vācaspati Miçra.

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Still more important was Dignāga’s doctrine of inference; it seems to have rested on the assurance that knowledge did not express real relations of external character; the relation of ground and conclusion (anumānānumeya-bhāva) rests upon the relation of inherence and essence, quality and subject (dharmadharmi-bhāva), which is imposed by thought (buddhyārūḍha). The doctrine harmonizes entirely with his doctrine of perception, for the product there is a creation of imagination (kalpanā, utprekṣā), and all that is left undecided is the nature of the contact in simple perception with some reality; nothing hinders¹ to accept this reality as merely a mental creation, a projection of the basic consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), but for logic the point is unimportant. The power of the mind to impose laws on phenomena affords us the possibility of those general prepositions (vyāpti) on which all reasoning rests, and enables Dignāga to develop a true syllogism: Sound is non-eternal, because it is produced; all the produced are non-eternals, like a pot; no non-produced are non-eternals, like ether. The examples serve to illustrate, but the general law is one of the intellect.

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¹ Cf. BSB. I. iv; AKV. (Paris MS., f. 267a) in Poussin, JRAS. 1910, p. 136, n. The something (vastu-mātra) at the basis is the Vijñāna or Ālayavijñāna; JRAS. 1906, p. 953. All determinations as substance, attribute, action, universality, and particularity (Vaiçeṣika categories) are in a sense false as conceptual and mediate (savikalpaka); Hetuvidyānyāyadvāraçāstra in Ui, VP., p. 67.

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Dignāga also defined the essential conditions of the middle term or cause (hetu); it must be present in the subject or minor term, e. g. smoke on the mountain; it must be comprehended in the major or predicate, e. g. where there is smoke, there must always be fire; the middle must not exist in things heterogeneous to the major term, e. g. smoke is entirely absent where there is no fire. The doctrine, like that of universal connexion, is criticized by Nyāya writers of the orthodox school, like Uddyotakara. On defects in this relation are based the fallacies of the middle, and Dignāga recognizes also fallacies of the thesis and the example, which the later logicians reject, but which influenced Praçastapāda. The logical advance in rejecting these fallacies is obvious.

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To Dignāga further belongs the credit of establishing the distinction between the actual process of reasoning for the ascertainment of truth and the reasoning for another, which takes the form of communication by the syllogism of three members.¹ He based this distinction on the rejection of the authority of the teacher's utterance as such (çabda).² If we are asked to accept authority, we ask: Is the person who uttered the saying credible, or is the fact itself credible? If the former, then our belief in his sayings is inference from his credibility; if the fact is credible then it is a case of perception. The only value, therefore, to be assigned to syllogism is indirect; the word has value, therefore, only as a conclusion or consequence of the fact; real fact gives a true conclusion. Thus the sources of knowledge are reduced to two, perception and inference. Comparison, a separate source of knowledge in the Nyāya theory, he also rejected; when we recognize a thing by similarity to something else, the operation is essentially perception.

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¹ Cf. Ui, VP., p. 82, n. 2; Keith, ILA., pp. 85 ff., 122 ff.

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² NV., p. 260; NVT., p. 286. On the Apta, cf. NB., p. 117; BC. ix. 66; MKV., p. 268; see AKV. (MS. Burn., f. 470a), JA. 1902, ii. 264, n. 2. Dignāga accepts, of course, Buddha's authority; see Kumārila's refutation, Tantravārttika, pp. 169 ff.; JRAS. 1902, pp. 369 ff.

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We must, however, remember that, despite the elaboration of logical doctrine and the stress laid on attaining correct results, we are not to suppose that we are actually in touch with reality; the one point of contact with something not certainly and immediately mental is inexpressible;³ what we deal with, as far as we can express ourselves, is mental concepts, which present a regular system of discourse, but whose relation to reality lies outside the province of Dignāga's logic.⁴ 3. *Dharmakīrti's Doctrine of Perception and Knowledge.*

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³ This is regular Vijñānavāda doctrine; BSB. I. iv; the ultimate and only real is void thought.

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⁴ It is possible that Maitreyanātha, author of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, preceded Dignāga in rejecting comparison (Upamāna), as certainly did Asaṅga; Nāgārjuna mentions all four, as equally invalid; cf. MKV., p. 75; Ui, VP., p. 86 (Vigrahavyāvartanī).

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The misfortune which has reduced us to mere translations of Dignāga's works has been escaped by Dharmakīrti,¹ who falls in the seventh century A. D., and whose *Nyāyabindu* with the commentary of Dharmottara (ninth century A. D.) still remains the premier source for our knowledge of the details of Buddhist logical development. In this case again there is some doubt as to the philosophical tenets which lay at the base of the author's contentions, for, while he appears in another text as a definite adherent of the Vijñānavada, it is held by the author of the *Nyāyabinduṭīkā-ṭippaṇī*,² a commentary on Dharmottara's commentary, that the *Nyāyabindu* is written from the Sautrāntika point of view—that is, recognizing the reality of an external world, known to us by inference only from the content of our experience. The point is hardly soluble with our evidence; the similarity of the views of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, as we have them, is very close, and, assuming that Dignāga wrote as an idealist,³ the issue resolves itself into the question whether Dharmakīrti has so modified the view of Dignāga as to allow of reference to an external reality which Dignāga would have declined to accept. But it is obvious that it would be extremely difficult to decide this point without express intimation of the author's definite views;

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it is not enough to make a man a realist in metaphysics, because in a logical treatise he speaks of an element as fact (*artha*), external (*bāhya*), or having a distinct character (*svalakṣaṇa*). His metaphysical views, he is entitled to ask, shall be gathered from treatises in which he has set them out, not inferred from logical doctrines which do not formally discuss the metaphysical nature of the given element in presentation. As regards, however, the question of knowledge, there is no point in urging the question; it is perfectly clear that the Sautrāntikas accepted the existence of ideas only as known to us, whence we infer an external reality; if, then, we accept the suggestion that Dharmakīrti was an adherent of that school in the ordinary sense of the term, we cannot suppose that he held the doctrine that ideas copy reality. In fact, whether Dharmakīrti was a Sautrāntika or a Vijñānavādin, his position might be expressed in the same terms; equally in either case all knowledge is of ideas; logical analysis must accept this fact; whether the source of the sensation is external or results from the action of consciousness, the sensation as such is unknowable and momentary. This is the essence of the doctrine of Dharmakīrti; the sensation (kṣaṇa) cannot be grasped (kṣaṇasya jñānena prāpayitum aśakyatvāt);¹ it becomes an object of knowledge only in so far as imagination gives it the necessary characteristics for knowledge.

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This is done by the action of the intellect in clothing the momentary impression with the result of past and the presage of future experience; it is the intellect which concerts the sensation into a knowable object, a moment series. Take away the work of the imagination (niścaya,² kalpanā, adhyavasāya), and you have nothing knowable left; you have merely the bare fact of sensation. The parallelism with the Kantian conception of the synthesis of apprehension is quite clear, however less effectively brought out. There is, however, the vital difference that in the view of Dharmakīrti, as of Dignāga, the addition of the intellectual element deprives perception of the truth of sensation (abhrānta); that is, he fails to realize the inconsistency of introducing the idea of error; truth being obviously an ideal conception, it is absurd to attribute error to it because it is not something different from itself. The expression of the idea of mere sensation by Dharmakīrti is doubtless faulty,³ but it is not necessary to deny him credit for following Dignāga in recognizing it. The particular sensation is unique, and it is developed by the imagination (vikalpa)⁴ into the knowledge of the object; when we are told that the sensation of blue is thus transformed into the perception ‘This is blue’, we must understand the doctrine in the light of common sense.¹ It is clear that the sensation as such cannot be described as blue;

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it is an immediate feltness, which results in our perception that the object is blue, and the sensation therefore can properly be called one of blue ex posteriori. It is not really because we have an awareness of blue that we speak of having perceived a blue object; it is because we have a perception of blue that we describe our ineffable sensation as an awareness of blue. This is seen by the avoidance of the term cause and result for the relation and the preference for determinant and determined (vyavasthāpana, vyavasthāpya).² The momentary sensation is absolutely real (paramārthasat),³ and is grasped in sensation alone; inference cannot reach the moment; it deals only with generalities (sāmānya-lakṣaṇa).

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¹ ILA., pp. 28, 48, 71, 84, 97, 101 ff., 127, 136 ff. Cf. TRD., pp. 32 ff.; NK., pp. 189 ff.; NM., pp. 93 ff.

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² ed. Petrograd, 1909. It cites views of Vinītadeva and Çantabhadra (seventh century A. D.). Cf. MSIL., pp. 119 f.

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³ The solution of the difficulty, pointed out by Poussin (JA. 1903, ii. 308, n. 2), is probably the fact that, as Wassilieff (*Bouddhisme*, p. 290) states, Dignāga accepted the reality of sense knowledge, i. e. of the *paratantra*, and did not treat it as illusory.

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¹ NBT., p. 16.

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² NBT., p. 30; TRD., pp. 33, 41.

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³ NBT., p. 16; NB., p. 103.

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⁴ NBT., pp. 4, 14.

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¹ Cf. Stcherbatskoi in Dasgupta, Ind. Phil. i. 409, n. 1. For a Sāṃkhya critique of the Buddhist doctrine of perception, see Aniruddha on SS. i. 89; for a Madhyamaka critique, see MKV., pp. 73 ff., where it is shown that it is illegitimate and too narrow.

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² NBT., pp. 19 f.

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³ NBT., p. 17; NB., p. 103.

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The idea of the process of knowledge in perception thus suggested is that of an object as endowed by the activity of the imagination with a definite ideal character, which is represented to us in the idea of the object; there is therefore sameness between the object and our idea, and we have not the absurdity of an idea copying something non-ideal. It is the experience or realization of the sameness which results in the assertion ‘This is blue’. The ground of this state, if inquired into, can be answered on the Vijñānavāda basis, as Dharmakīrti does in his Pramāṇa-viniścaya preserved in Tibetan; consciousness develops itself into the ultimately unreal complex of the object, subject, and consciousness of the object by the subject.⁴ In this may lie the apparent outwardness of the presentation.

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⁴ See cit. in SDS., p. 13; Poussin, JRAS. 1910, p. 132.

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The idea of truth or correctness in relation to knowledge is clearly not possible of statement as accordance with the object, which is known only in idea, and with this accords admirably the fact that the criterion adopted is not correspondence, but one applicable to both perception and inference,⁵ namely, verification by experience on acting upon the knowledge. If we have a perception, or arrive at some proposition by inference, then we put it to the test of fact, and, if that agrees with our perception or inference, we have assurance that our knowledge is right. We have the presentation or idea; we are prompted to act upon it; we realize the object in accordance with our endeavour based on the presentation or percept. Only in this way can we be assured of the correctness of our knowledge; otherwise we have knowledge which may be true or false. That we have illusory percepts, e. g. when through derangement we see as yellow the white conch shell or have dreams, we know by experience; if we act on the faith of the presentations we do not attain what we should. True, we cannot possibly realize the precise object which gave the presentation, since all is momentary; but the imagination supplies the belief in the absence of difference between the aspect of the series which is gone and that which is realized in the present.¹ Of course we must not think that right knowledge is the direct cause of our realization of anything, for that is effected through the desire, which itself is a product arising from memory of past experiences evoked by the presentation. The pragmatic nature of truth is thus strongly asserted, but it must be remembered that we are merely dealing with empirical matters, not with ultimate reality.

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⁵ Cf. TRD., pp. 33, 41; NB., p. 103; NBT., pp. 6 ff.; NBTT. pp. 16 ff.

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¹ NBTT., p. 11 : abhedādhyavasāyāt, NBT., p. 5; cf. TRD., p. 40.

4. Dharmakīrti's Theory of Inference

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Inferential knowledge is essentially of generality; it cannot reach to the immediateness of presentation; the mountain inferred as fiery is not the presentation of the fire on the mountain at a definite point of time. Its validity must be verified, if desired, by the usual process of action; we must, for instance, go to the mountain and see the fire, which we have inferred from the smoke cloud. An advance is made on Dignāga in the process of examination of the conditions of a correct middle term; the middle must be present in those things only in which the thing to be inferred exists, and absent in all those things in which it is not found; the rule must be observed fully in either case, or the inference will be doubtful. Cases where there is the necessary invariable connexion are limited to three only, in Dharmakīrti's view, namely, identity of nature or essence (*tādātmya*), effect of a cause, and non-perception or non-existence. It has been ingeniously, but quite legitimately, pointed out¹ that this gives a classification of judgement on the basis of positive and negative, with the division of the affirmative judgements into analytical, relation of identity, or causal, relation of effect to cause. Reasoning, therefore, which is defined as knowledge of the inferable derived through the middle term, is of three main types: ‘This is a tree, because it is a pine,’ relation of identity, the species allowing the inference of the genus; ‘Here there is fire, because there is smoke,’ the cause fire is inferred from the effect smoke; and ‘Here is no smoke, because it is not perceived,’ as smoke would, if existent, be perceived. This third variety, based on non-perception or non-existence, is divided into eleven classes, of a somewhat needlessly varied character. The ground of the inference, it will be observed, is thus always a general proposition, which rests on mental activity, and falls under one of three categories.²

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¹ Stcherbatskoi, *Museon*, v (1904), p. 144, n. 6.

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² NB., p. 31; NB., pp. 104 ff. ; TRD., pp. 41 ff, where four classes of non-perception are enumerated: perception of the contrary, of contrary effect; non-perception of cause, of identity.

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Inference for the sake of another, or syllogism, is defined as the verbal declaration of the middle term—that is, when the reason is set out in words in order to produce a conviction in others.³ Inference is properly a form of knowledge, and words are, therefore, only inference in a secondary sense, namely, as producing knowledge, the name of the cause being derived from the effect. Such a form of inference is two-fold, either direct or homogeneous (*sādharmyavat*) or indirect or heterogeneous (*vaidharmyavat*): either ‘Sound is non-eternal, because it is a product; all products are non-eternal, like a pot’, or ‘Sound is non-eternal, because it is a product; no non-eternal thing is a product, like ether’. This, however, is a needlessly full form of the syllogism; Dharmakīrti is content with the simple form ‘The hill is fiery, because it is smoky’, the express formulation of the general proposition being unnecessary, since it is contained in the reason ‘because it is smoky’. The omission of the example he defends¹ against Dignāga by insisting that the term ‘smoke’ includes the case cited in the example and also the negative example; but he concedes that it has the value of giving particularity to what is pointed out in a general way by the middle term; the complete enunciation of the reasoning with the concrete example is more effective.

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³ NB., pp. 108 ff. ; NBT., pp. 46 ff.

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¹ NB., pp. 115 f. ; MSIL., p. 114, n. 2.

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Fallacies² are classed by Dharmakīrti according to the old division of fallacies of the thesis, i. e. the minor term combined with the major, e. g. the fiery hill, as insisted upon by Dignāga; of the middle; and of the example, divided according to the homogeneous and the heterogeneous example. His classification of fallacies of the middle, the only important class, is on the basis that a fallacy arises if a characteristic of the middle is unproved (*asiddha*), e. g. ‘Sound is eternal, because it is visible,’ visibility being admitted by neither party to the supposed argument; uncertain (*anaikāntika*), e. g. ‘Sound is non-eternal, because it is knowable,’ where ‘knowable’ is too wide since it covers both eternal and non-eternal things; and as contradictory (*viruddha*), e. g. ‘Sound is eternal, because it is a product,’ the middle contradicting the major. He differs from Dignāga in rejecting two of the forms of fallacy allowed by the former, the first³ being reduced very sensibly to a mere form of contradiction, while the latter⁴ is laid aside on the interesting ground that it does not rise from true reasoning but is based on the scriptures of the two disputants, and scripture alone is no authority for Dharmakīrti.

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² NB., pp. 111 ff. ; NBT., pp. 65 ff.

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³ NB., p. 113; NBT., p. 78; PATHAK, JBRAS. xix. 51.

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⁴ NB. p. 115; NBT., p. 84; JBRAS. xix. 49.

5. Controversies with the Nyāya

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Dharmakīrti’s three-fold basis of inference, and the insistence, which accompanies it, that inference could not rest on any mere observation either of positive or negative instances, being in essence an ideal construction, caused naturally much concern to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school, which was not prepared to accept this rejection of experience. The criticisms of Vācaspati Miśra¹ are of interest. He argues that in the case of identity of essence there is no true inference at all, inference being inconsistent with identity. The case of cause and effect is equally unsound; it is assumed that the cause immediately precedes the effect, e. g. fire precedes smoke, but there is no way of showing that in each case the smoke is not really caused by fire, but by some invisible power. Moreover, even if the argument of the Buddhists were accepted, then all we could infer is not the present, but the antecedent existence of fire. But still more serious is the fact that the Buddhist rule excludes perfectly genuine cases of effective inference: the sunrise of one day may be inferred from that of preceding days. The mode of obtaining a universal is observation of positive and negative instances, and searching for vitiating conditions (upādhi) which prevent a true universal being established, e. g. where there is smoke, there is always fire, but, where fire, there smoke, only if green wood be burned. If on observation no such condition appears, an inference is valid. We learn that the Buddhists had devised an ingenious five-condition (pañcakāraṇī)² method in order to determine causal connexion, viz. the perception neither of cause nor of effect; the perception of the cause; the perception of the effect in immediate succession; the disappearance of the cause; and the disappearance in immediate succession of the effect. But it was argued that this method also did not succeed in establishing effectively the relation of cause and effect, and that therefore it was better to rely on the simple fact of invariable relation without limiting it to the causal category.

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¹ NVT., pp. 105 ff. ; cf. NM., pp. 113 ff.

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² SDS., p. 6; see Seal, Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus, pp. 258 ff. ; NK., p. 206.

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In his commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyakabhāṣya Sureçvarācārya,³ the pupil of Çaṅkarācārya, also attacks Dharmakīrti. He admits that the positive and negative examples in the syllogism are not probative, but holds them useful to remove doubts, when knowledge is obtained. But the three principles of Dharmakīrti are idle lumber. If we assume that fire is inferred from heat, that being its special nature, on the basis of identity, we see that heat may also give rise to the inference of fire, as the effect of fire as cause, so that we have two different principles operating equally effectively, which is absurd. Again, heat is not merely the special nature of fire, but is found also elsewhere, e. g. in the sun, so that we could infer the sun equally with fire. Similarly, from touch we could infer not merely earth, but also water, fire, and wind. If, however, it be contended that we Buddhists do not accept anything as the peculiar nature of anything else, if it is found in more than one thing, the answer is that you do assert the possibility of arguing from the Çiṃçapā being a tree, although the nature of a tree is shared by others, e. g. the Dhāva. Moreover, if you assert a Çiṃçapā is a tree because of invariable concomitance of characteristics, you contradict your doctrine of momentariness as the peculiar nature of things. Again, what is common to many things, like momentariness, cannot be the peculiar nature of any one. Smoke is seen coming not only from fire but also from smoke, so that fire cannot be made its sole cause. Just so, also, touch has more sources than one, and it is impossible to conclude, because it is found in the wind, that it is not also the specific nature of earth, for that is asserted effectively by popular knowledge. Further, if one thinks to establish by invariable concomitance the peculiar nature or cause of anything, it will be found that invariable connexion does not follow from peculiar nature alone—that is, that there may be invariability, e. g. of the sequence of constellations when there can be no idea of peculiar nature, or of cause.

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³ See Pathak, JBRAS. xviii. 91 ff. ; xix. 54 ff. ; Ānandāçrama ed., pp. 1515 ff. For the Vaiśeṣika criticism see Çrīdhara, NK., pp. 207 ff.

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In the *Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha*¹ we find the Buddhist reply to the Nyāya critique. To the Nyāya reliance on the observation of concurrence positive and negative, it is objected that it is impossible to feel assurance that there will not emerge some discrepancy in the past or future. The rather obvious retort that the Buddhist position itself is no more secure is countered by the argument that doubt is only permissible when it does not land us in practical absurdities; in this case the idea that an effect could exist without a cause would land us in hopeless difficulties by paralysing action. The argument establishes the validity of inference from effect to cause, and inference from identity is established by the fact that to deny it is absurd; if the Ciṃcapā should cease to be a tree, it would lose its own nature. Moreover, such an inference is real; it is impossible where there is absolute sameness, or absolute divergence, but applies in every case of species and genus.

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¹ p. 6.

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As against the contention of the materialist Cārvākas the Buddhists defend the validity of inference. If inference is denied as a valid means of proof, the contention runs, it must be by some form of argument, since a mere assertion is utterly worthless as proof. But, if argument is used, analysis shows that the opponent in effect admits unconsciously the three forms of inference used by the Buddhists. By arguing on the basis of validity of perception as a means of proof against the apparent means of proof which is inference, he really argues on the basis of the community of nature between the two, which is the Buddhist form of inference from identity of nature. By being conscious of the dissent of his adversaries he shows that he recognizes inference from cause, since he knows the dissent expressed in words. By denying the existence of any object on the ground of it not being perceived, he admits the form of inference from non-perception.

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A further refinement of logical doctrine is contained in the *Antarvyāptisamarthana* of Ratnākara Çānti in the tenth century.¹ It is necessitated by considerations affecting the proof of the momentariness of things. Normally an inference gives us in the example the concomitance of the middle and the major in some object; for instance, fire on the mountain is proved from the presence of smoke there with the aid of the example of the kitchen where smoke and fire co-exist. But this is impossible in the case of momentariness *ex vi termini*. Moreover, the conclusion in the normal case takes the form of the presence of the invariable relation in some subject, e. g. the relation of smoke and fire in the mountain, and the inference to establish momentariness cannot be given such a form. The new doctrine insists that it is possible to prove the relation within (antar), that is simply between the thing to be proved and the thing by which it is to be proved, without the intervention of something external (bahis) in which the relation is to exist.

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¹ See *Six Buddhist Nyāya Tracts in Sanskrit* (BI. 1910), pp. 103 ff., v. ff.; MSIL., pp. 140 f.

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Somewhat earlier, perhaps, is a tract on Apohasiddhi by Ratnakīrti, which deals with the significance of words, and promulgates the Buddhist doctrine that the word has both a positive signification and a negative, in that it differentiates the thing referred to from others; these two sides of its activity are simultaneous and not successive; the tract is interesting because it refutes in succession the views of Kumārila, Trilocana, Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, Vācaspati Miśra, and Dharmottara.¹

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¹ Ibid., pp. 1 ff., iii. Cf. Stcherbatskoi, Muséon, v (1904), pp. 165 ff. ; ILA., p. 106; MSIL., p. 140; NM., pp. 303 ff.

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An interesting link between Buddhism and the Nyāya and Vaiçeṣika schools is provided in the conception of the perception of Yogins, which forms in Dharmakīrti² the fourth of the forms of perception, the other three being sense perception in the narrow sense, mental perception which really forms one with sense perception, and self-consciousness which is regarded as essentially accompanying every psychical occurrence, an idea which Dharmottara illustrates, but not very lucidly, seeming, in part at least, to confound self-consciousness with the presence of feeling as emotion simultaneously with perception, e. g. of colour. There was an obvious difficulty for Buddhism with its doctrine of momentariness in allowing for self-consciousness, which none of the schools effectively faced; the later Nyāya doctrine frankly made the element of self-consciousness a secondary product supervening on consciousness. Self-consciousness is perception, since it reveals the self (ātmanaḥ sākātṣārī), is devoid of imagination (nirvikalpaka), and free from error (abhrānta). The perception of Yogins is also without error, for it deals with matters such as the four noble truths which ar over and above the ordinary means of proof; it is without imagination, consisting of clear insight, which supervenes on intense concentration on the matters. This is interesting as a rationalized statement of the intuition (*paññā*) of the Pali Canon. It has a parallel in the perception of seers (*ārṣa*) which figures in the Vaiçeṣika,¹ and in the doctrine of the Nyāyasāra of Bhāsarvajña, which recognizes an indeterminate (*nirvikalpaka*) intuition on the part of Yogins engaged in meditation (*samādhi*).

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² NB., p. 103 ; NBT., pp. 14 f. ; Nyāyasāra, pp. 3 f., 82 ff. ; TRD., pp. 39 f. (using NBT.) ; NM., pp. 103 ff.; Gāṅgeça, Tattvacintāmaṇi, i. 795 ; ILA., pp. 73, 76, 258 f.

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¹ Vaiçeṣika Sūtra, ix. 1. 13; Praçastapādabhāṣya, p. 187; NK., pp. 189 ff.; ILA., pp. 81 ff.

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Uddyotakara² discusses in an interesting way the doctrine apparently ascribed to Vasubandhu, which defines perception as cognition proceeding from just that object (*tato 'rthāt*), the terms after cognition being asserted to be without meaning. They cannot serve to discriminate perception from inference, on the score that perception is derived from the object only, while inference involves other factors, for the definition is perfectly compatible with inference. Nor can it serve to distinguish perception of colour, &c., from perception of an object as such, e. g. a jar, for the perception of colour and of a jar are two perfectly distinct perceptions, and it is quite erroneous to assume that there is no such thing as a jar, but merely perception of colour, &c. Nor is it of any avail to exclude wrong cognition, for it is not the case, as assumed by the Buddhists, that false perception arises from something which is not the object, e. g. that the incorrect apprehension of silver in a shell is produced by something which is not-shell. Further, the Buddhists' view is open to the fatal objection that it makes the object the cause of cognition; now a cause must precede the effect; the object perceived thus exists before the perception, and, as momentary, has ceased to be before it is perceived, and this is plainly absurd, since perception is only of what is immediately present. It is hopeless to argue that the disappearance of the object and the emergence of perception are simultaneous, in the face of the impossibility of establishing any such effect; moreover, in any case, the object is admitted to have disappeared, and therefore to be past at the very moment when it is being perceived as present, which is fatal to the Buddhist view.

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² NV., pp. 42 ff.; NVT., p. 100; MKV., p. 71.

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The question of falsity touched on here is further confuted by the Nyāya¹ in connexion with the doctrines of Asatkhyāti and Ātmakhyāti, under which they discuss the explanations of incorrect cognition offered by the Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra schools respectively. The former view holds that wrong cognition is a manifestation or making known of something which is unreal, non-existence (asat); to see silver in a shell is to assert the existence of something unreal. The obvious objection to this view is that it asserts that a non-existing thing can produce an effect, but this is met by the Madhyamaka contention that it is not necessary that the non-existing thing should have any such potency; it is enough to assume that cognition has the power of presenting the thing apprehended as existent or non-existent. The Nyāya answer insists instead that the false cognition proceeds from a real object which is misapprehended, understood otherwise than is correct (anyathā-khyāti).

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¹ NVT., pp. 53 f.; Vivaraṇaprameyasaṃgraha, trs., pp. 85 ff.; cf. Bhāmatī, pp. 12 ff.; NM., pp. 545 f.

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In the case of the Vijñānavāda, incorrect cognition is explained by the fact that what is merely idea is referred erroneously to the external world, ignoring the fact that there is no real difference between the self, the object of knowledge, and knowledge. The Nyāya criticism² is that, if the premisses of the Buddhist were correct, the cognition which arises would take the form not of ‘this is silver’ but ‘I am silver’, and this is obviously not the case. Moreover, the view is open to all the objections always available against the doctrine of the non-existence of external reality. Finally, even on its own merits the doctrine is not preferable to the Nyāya doctrine of Anyathākhyāti, since in fact, even on the Buddhist view, error lies in cognizing a thing as something which it is not, and this is precisely the Nyāya doctrine.

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² So Aniruddha, SS. i. 42.

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