Verse 2412

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

प्रमाणानां निवृत्त्याऽपि न प्रमेयं निवर्त्तते ।
यस्माद्व्यापकहेतुत्वं तेषां तत्र न विद्यते ॥ २४१२ ॥

pramāṇānāṃ nivṛttyā'pi na prameyaṃ nivarttate |
yasmādvyāpakahetutvaṃ teṣāṃ tatra na vidyate || 2412 ||

The absence of the means of cognition does not necessarily mean the absence of the object of cognition; because the latter are not causes with which the former is invariably concomitant.—(2412)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

It has been argued by the Mimāṃsaka under 2095, above, that ‘the author of the Veda’ is not cognisable by any of the five Means of Knowledge, etc. etc.

The answer to this is as follows:—[see verse 2412 above]

What is meant by this the most important argument (of the Mīmāṃsaka) is ‘inadmissible’,

It is only what is all-pervading, e.g. the Cause, which, being absent, indicates the absence of the less pervasive, e.g. the Effect; because these two are related to each other—the all-pervasive to the less pervasive, by the relation of co-essentiality, and the Cause to the Effect by the relation of the one being produced by the other;—and for you, the effect and the less-pervasive factor cannot be present when their correlatives are not there.—As regards the Means of Cognition, they cannot be pervasive over, and the Cause of, all things. For instance, it is quite possible for a thing far removed in time and place and nature, to exist even without the Means of Cognition applying to it; hence the said Means of Cognition cannot be pervasive over all things. Nor can the Means of Cognition be regarded as the Cause of all things, for the same reason; specially as it is the other way about, the Means of Cognition itself being the effect or product of the Objects of Cognition. And yet when the Effect is absent, it does not imply the Absence of the Cause; as such a premiss is found to be false. And what is neither the Cause nor all-pervasive cannot indicate the absence of its correlatives; as, if it did, there would be incongruities.

Thus it is established that in the proving of the absence of the Object of Cognition only, the absence of the Means of Cognition only, if cited as a Reason, is clearly ‘inconclusive’ and wrong.—(2412)

The same ‘Inconclusiveness’ is further confirmed by the possibility of the Reason in the Contrary of the Probandum:—[see verse 2413 next]