Buddhist Logic v2.c19.s2: § 2. A Passage of Uddyotakāra's Nyāya-Vārtika
Buddhist Logic v2.c19.s2
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§ 2. A Passage of Uddyotakāra's Nyāya-Vārtika
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ed. Calcutta, 1897 (B. I), pp. 5. 5—5. 12.
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(5. 5). (The Buddhist) objects and maintains that the cooperation¹ (of the different sources of our knowledge in the cognition of one and the same object) is impossible, since each of them has its own special field of action. This we (Naiyāyiks) deny, because we do not admit that (each has its own special object). There is indeed such a theory. Every source of our knowledge is supposed to have a special object. Sensation² apprehends particulars (only), inference³ apprehends universals (exclusively). That alone is an object of our knowledge which is either a universal or a particular. Sensation is not intent upon a universal, and never is inference⁴ intent upon a particular.⁵ (5. 9). This we, (Naiyāyiks), deny, because we do not agree (with the reason). We neither admit that there are only two sources of knowledge, (sensation and conception⁶), nor that there are only two (quite distinct) objects of knowledge, (the particular⁷ and the universal), nor do we maintain that they cannot coalesce. Why? The sources are four in number, (perception, inference, analogy and testimony). The objects are of three kinds, the universal, the particular and the individual thing as possessor¹ of Universals, (concrete universals).
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¹ Or mixture — samplava = sankara = ekasmin viṣaye sarveṣām pramāṇānām pravṛttiḥ.
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² pratyakṣa, sense-perception according to the realists.
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³ anumāna, according to the Buddhists it includes conception.
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⁴ The Buddhist understands «conception».
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⁵ The Buddhist understands «the ultimate particular, the point-instant», the Naiyāyik understands the empirical concrete thing.
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⁶ The Naiyāyik understands «sense-perception and inference».
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⁷ i. e., the ultimate particular. This fundamental feature of the Buddhist system has been noticed and very well expressed by the learned editor of the Tattvasangraha, Introduction p. 43, — svalakṣaṇasya avācyatvam..., atyantika-
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¹ *tadvat* = *sāmānyavad-viśeṣaḥ*, it is really a « particular universal », a contradictio in adjecto, just as sensation-imagination.
Cites (1)
- Tattvasaṃgraha — Śāntarakṣita, Sanskrit