Text 107

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Text 107:

आप्तेनाप्रसिद्धस्य गवयस्य गवा गवयप्रतिपादनाद् उपमानम् आप्तवचनम् एव ॥ १०७ ॥

āptenāprasiddhasya gavayasya gavā gavayapratipādanād upamānam āptavacanam eva || 107 ||

Text (107).—In as much as in the case of analogical cognition a trustworthy person describes the gavaya to one who does not know it, through the cow,—this must be regarded as a case of Trustworthy Assertion.

Commentary: The Nyāyakandalī of Śrīdhara.

(English rendering of Śrīdhara’s commentary called Nyāyakandalī or Nyāyakaṇḍalī from the 10th century)

The author now proceeds to show that Analogy is only a form of Inference. The word ‘āpti’ means the direct reaching—i.e., correct cognition; and one who has this is called ‘āpta’ one who has direct cognition of such transcendental things as dharma and the like, and who is a teacher or instructor of things which he may have rightly known. When such a person,—in the present instance, a forester knowing the gavaya—is asked by the cityman who does not know that animal—‘what sort of an animal is the gavaya?’—he describes the animal through its similarity to the cow (which is known to the cityman), by saying—‘the gavaya is like the cow;’ and it is the recognition of this fact of the gavaya being like the cow that constitutes Analogical Cognition; and certainly this is nothing more or less than a trustworthy assertion; as the cognition, that ‘the gavaya is like the cow,’ is based upon the authoritative character of the speaker (if the speaker is not known to be a reliable person, the said cognition fails to appear); and trustworthy assertion is only a form of Inference (as shown above). And hence Analogy also is only a form of Inference.

Some Mīmāṃsakas maintain that it is the assertion of the forester (that ‘the gavaya is like the cow’) that constitutes ‘upamāna’, ‘Analogy;’ and for these also the cognition in question comes to be purely inferential.

The followers of Śabara Svāmī (the author of the Mīmāṃsā Bhāṣya) hold that when a man who knows the cow sees the gavaya in the forest, he remembers the cow, and then he has the idea—‘my cow is similar to this animal’; and it is this knowledge of similarity that constitutes Analogical Cognition. And this would be only a case of Remembrance.

Similarity, like Generality, rests in its entirety in each individual, and it does not extend over both members, like Conjunction; because as a matter of fact we find that even when the cow is not before us, we have the idea of the gavaya, which is before us in the forest, having the similarity of the cow (and if similarity extended over both members this would not be possible as only one of the two is before us); as has been said by the teachers of Mīmāṃsā: ‘Similarity, like Generality, rests in its entirety in each individual, as, we find that even when one correlative is not seen, its similarity (in the other) is duly recognised.’ (Ślokavārtika).

Even if the similarity always rested in each of the correlatives (the cow and the gavaya), so long as the gavaya had not been seen the man could not have any notion of its similarity in the cow; and yet it is only right that similarity should be cognised at the time of the proximity of its J substratum (to the person); just as, though while the other member of the comparison is not perceived there does not appear any such idea as that ‘this is longer or shorter than that’ yet as soon as the object with a certain dimension comes before the person, he perceives the dimension all right; if it were not so, then how could it be that meeting with the other correlative at another place, the man should have the ideal that ‘this that I see now is longer, or shorter, than the object: I had seen before? If the similarity in the cow were not cognised, on the previous occasion, by the mere action of the senses, and if, on the present occasion too, it were not cognised in the gavaya, then there could be no such restriction as that, on the perception of the gavaya its similarity to the cow should be remembered; as there would not be any peculiarity in the cow or the gavaya whereby the sight of the one should recalls the similarity of the other.

Objection: “The restriction of the remembrance is duel to the perception in the gavaya of the same general characters of possessing hoofs, and tail etc., as have been perceived in the cow.”

Reply: ‘Similarity’ consists only in the possession by both of certain limbs of the same kind; and if these common alities of limbs are perceived by the perception of each of the substrates, then similarity would also be cognised; hence on the perception of the gavaya, the cognition of the similarity as belonging to the cow, not before the eyes at the time, could not but be a case of Remembrance, born of the impression aroused by the perception of another object (the gavaya) similar to the cow; and being of the nature of Remembrance, it could not be regarded as a distinct form of knowledge. We have seen that even that which is perceived only by non-determinate abstract perception becomes an object of remembrance; as an ignorant person (not knowing the word whereby the perception of the object could become determinate) having seen one of the correlatives on a previous occasion, when he comes to see the other, he recognises in the latter the commonalities that he had perceived in the former.

Some people regard Analogical cognition to be of the nature of the cognition of the relationship of the name and the named (the denoter and the denoted),—holding that the man who has heard the declaration that ‘the gavaya is similar to the cow’, on seeing the gavaya and finding it to be similar to the cow, he comes to the conclusion that ‘the word gavaya is the name of this animal?

In accordance with this view also, the declaration the ‘the gavaya is like the cow’ is a sentence; and as it is this sentence that is held to give rise to the cognition, that ‘that which is heard of as gavaya is similar to the cow,’—this cognition cannot but be regarded as purely verbal in its character. And as for the cognition of the denotability, of the animal similar to the cow, by the word ‘gavaya’—this is purely inferential; on account of the use of that word; that is to say, it could be reduced to the following inferential form: ‘A word becomes expressive of that with reference to which it is advisedly used by all learned persons,—the word ‘gavaya’ is so used with reference to the animal similar to the cow, by the forester,—therefore that animal is denoted by the word ‘gavaya.’

The cognition of similarity in the gavaya is distinctly sensuous in its character. Then as regards the cognition of the animal as apart from all other things in the world, that too is a resultant of sensuous cognition. As for the recognition of the relationship of the name and the named, that is a case of Remembrance, being born of the impression left by the cognition of the denotability by the word ‘gavaya’ of the animal similar to the cow, brought up by the previously born commonality, manifested by the comprehension of similarity; just like the recalling of the denotability by that word, of another object of the same, class as the one with regard to which the conventional signification, by the word, of the commonality has been cognised in one instance,—and the impression left by which cognition is the cause of the said recalling; as the recalling is in the following form: ‘it was of the same animal that I had comprehended the denotability by that word, on the previous occasion and in this there would be no room for Analogy (and as such this cannot be regarded as an instance of Analogical Cognition).

As for Presumptive Cognition, it is based upon the apparent inconsistency of some fact that is directly perceived or heard. The opponent (the Mīmāṃsaka who regards Presumptive Cognition as an independent form of knowledge) has proved the usefulness of the separate mention of the word ‘heard’ in this connection; and has thus shown that there are two kinds of Presumptive Cognition—the Dṛṣṭārthāpatti, based upon the apparent inconsistency of what is directly perceived, and the Śrutārthāpati based upon that of what is heard. That is to say, where a thing that is perceived is found to be inconsistent without something else, it indicates or leads to the presumption of this latter; and this is a case of the former kind; e.g., in the case of the information that ‘Caitra who is alive is not in the house,’ the absence of Caitra in the house is cognised by means of ‘Negation;’ and the information as regards his being alive indicates the possibility of his presence in the house, as a living person is generally found living in houses; but it is not possible for the same person at the same time to be both absent and present in the house; as presence and absence are mutually contradictory and exclusive; and thus the absence would be wholly inconsistent with the information regarding the man being alive, if he did not exist somewhere outside the house; and as a rule that which is inconsistent implies that whereby it ceases to be inconsistent; and as the absence in the house of the living Caitra would never cease to be inconsistent unless he existed outside the house; the inconsistency of the absence in the house is in view of the fact of his being alive; and this inconsistency ceases when Caitra is recognised as existing outside; in this case there are two cognitions—(1) ‘Caitra lives,’ and (2) ‘he is not in the house, being outside’; of these one has some room elsewhere while the other has no room; and when these two are found to be mutually contradictory, the inconsistency of that which has no room leads to the other being taken as pertaining to something else; and the removal of their inconsistency constitutes the basis of Presumptive Cognition. Sometimes it so happens that on seeing one correlative which pertains to a definite place, etc., we remember the relationship which brings about the cognition of the other correlative; and this cognition is purely inferential, differing from Presumptive Cognition in the process of its appearance; as has been declared: ‘In Inference the necessary-condition lies in being born from concomitance, while Presumption is totally different, operating solely through negation.’

We have an instance of the other kind of Presumptive Cognition, the Śrutārthāpatti, where the inconsistency of one assertion indicates another assertion. E.g., the assertion that ‘fat Devadatta eats not in the day’ leads to the presumption that ‘he eats at night.’ which sentence takes the place of the latter half of the former sentence.

The author now proceeds to show that the Dṛṣṭārthāpatti is only a form of Inference:—