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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c26.s4: 5. Controversies with the Nyāya

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c26.s4

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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.

Cites (12)