Verse 1456

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

न प्रमाणमिति प्राहुरनुमानं तु केचन ।
विवक्षामर्पयन्तोऽपि वाग्भिराभिः कुदृष्टयः ॥ १४५६ ॥

na pramāṇamiti prāhuranumānaṃ tu kecana |
vivakṣāmarpayanto'pi vāgbhirābhiḥ kudṛṣṭayaḥ || 1456 ||

Some short-sighted people have asserted that “inference is not a means of right cognition”, though, by these very words, they offer up their own ‘desire to speak’ (intention, idea in the mind, as something to be inferred from those words).—(1456)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

‘Some people’—the followers of Bṛhaspati and others.

‘Through these same words’,—i.e. by the words ‘Inference is not a means of Right Cognition’.

This shows that the assertion of these people involves self-contradiction. For instance, when a man makes a statement to another person, it is on the basis of the understanding that ‘the idea present in one’s mind is understood from the words he uses, which are indicative of that idea’; so that when the people denying Inference make the statement,—by this statement itself—they admit the fact of Inference being a Means of Right Cognition;—and yet this same he denies by the statement that ‘Inference is not a Means of Right Cognition’;—and this is self-contradiction.

This objection is going to be further explained later on.—(1456)