A comparative study between Buddhism and Nyaya

by Roberta Pamio | 2021 | 71,952 words

This page relates ‘Indian and Buddhist Epistemology: an Introduction’ of the study on perception in the context of Buddhism compared to Nyaya (a system of Hindu philosophy). These pages researches the facts and arguments about the Buddhist theory of perception and its concerned doctrines while investigating the history of Buddhist epistemology (the nature of knowledge). The Nyaya school (also dealing with epistemology) considers ‘valid knowledge’ the means for attaining the ultimate goal of life (i.e., liberation).

Indian and Buddhist Epistemology: an Introduction

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The present work “Perception: A Comparative Study between Buddhism and Nyāya” is an attempt to give a complete account of the theory of perception given by Buddhism and Nyāya school of philosophy. It is a study of the Buddhist theory of perception in comparison with the rival theory of Nyāya system and a critical estimation of its worth. It wants to clear up the misunderstanding caused by the biased and unbalanced criticism of the Buddhist theory of perception from Indian philosophers particularly Nyāya School.

Any civilization is essentially represented by different values including spiritual as well as material accumulated by many generations. These values are established with the help of knowledge and also of experience of different people in the society. This is the reason why human attainment of knowledge is regarded as one of the most important aspects for the establishment of any civilization. This attainment of knowledge is also called Education. The Ancient Greek people hold that knowledge makes a person wise. Philosophers like Socrates believe that knowledge is similar to virtue. On the other hand, Francis Bacon believes that knowledge is power and an instrument that helps in the growth of a society. In the Bhagvad Gītā, Śrī Kṛṣṇa considers knowledge as one of the characteristics of an individual endowed with equanimity, equilibrium and mental balance.

How high the Gītā considers knowledge can be observed from the following:

“Even the most sinful man can cross over the ocean of samsāra by means of the boat of knowledge alone. As a fire well-kinded reduces fuel to ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes. The culmination of action is in knowledge. Having obtained knowledge one soon embraces peace. There is nothing purer than knowledge.”^[1]

Dharmakīrti, a great Buddhist logician, also believes that in order to reach successful human action, right knowledge is the prerequisite thing. Therefore, to the development of any community, the attainment of knowledge is necessary.

Knowledge is not limited to what one experiences from school, college or in daily life, but it can be learnt from society and nature, that include different traditions, practices, customs etc. The diversity of knowledge and its sources show a fact that from old times people were aware of loving of knowledge. This love of knowledge led to the development of philosophy, which means “love for wisdom”. It is a study that attempts to know the mysteries of existence and reality. Philosophy has many branches like metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. Epistemology is regarded as an essential part of philosophy. The word Epistemology is derived from “Episteme”, which means knowledge and “logos” means theory. Epistemology thus is the theory or science of knowledge. Epistemology plays an important role in different systems of Indian philosophy. All systems of Indian philosophy, without exception, admit a fact that epistemology is an essential because they consider, ignorance as the main cause of human suffering. Therefore, they attempt to discuss carefully factors relating to the definition, means, validity and way to attain proper knowledge. This work is carried out in order to get rid of suffering and to achieve salvation. Indian epistemology, thus, closely related to ontology and ethics. Knowledge is often called the source of good life or the first step of human activities.^[2] Sometimes, moral purity is considered as necessity for right knowledge, therefore morality and knowledge are regarded as the two aspects of human perfection which cannot be separable.^[3]

In Western and Greek philosophy special importance is given to epistemology. In Greek epistemology, knowledge is perception maintained by the atomists and the sophists. Thinkers like Protagoras and Gorgias are come under the category of Sophists. They believe that in perception there is a movement from the external thing towards the sense organ and yet again there is also a similar movement of the sense-organ towards the motion of the external thing. Thus, there is a double movement, one from the external object and another from the sense-organ of the perceiver. So, perception is the result of both the thing moving towards the subject and the subject moving towards the object. Hence, perception is knowledge. The famous saying of Protagoras is: “Man is the measure of all things”^[4] is based on this view of Perception. According to him, knowledge is that which is true to all and perception alone is knowledge. And this knowledge is different for each and every person at different times. To say that “man is the measure of all things” is therefore, to say that our knowledge is measured by what we perceive, and if there is something about each of us that makes us perceive things different ways, there is no standard for testing whether one person’s perception is right and another person’s wrong.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are important critics of this theory. According to Socrates and Plato, knowledge is universal, valid and devoid of any contradiction. Perception is transitory and relative to different people. He believes that knowledge is not perception because it deals with reason or rational thinking. Knowledge being permanent cannot be based on sense-experience. Further, he states that knowledge is also not based on opinions. For instance, if a person says that it may be rain today. This statement cannot consider as knowledge as it is merely a guess. On the other hand, suppose it indeed rains that day then also, it cannot be considered as knowledge because it could merely be a coincidence. So, knowledge is not dependent upon opinions or imagination.

In Western epistemology, Empiricism and Rationalism are the two theories to know the reality. The empiricists believe in empirical experience of everyday life while the rationalists draw their model based on mathematics. For empiricists, knowledge can be attained from experience and for rationalists; reason is the source of knowledge. According to the empiricist, one mind is a clear state or tabula rasa. All the aspects of knowledge are attained by sense-experience. For rationalist, our mind is an independent means of knowledge. It provides us innate ideas and knowledge comprises in these innate ideas only.

The followers of Empiricism believe that perceptual knowledge or sense perception is an essential requirement of all human knowledge. According to this system, all knowledge demands empirical premises based on empirical data. Some important Empiricist philosophers are Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. On the other hand, Rationalist believes that reason is the basis of all human knowledge. Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz are those thinkers who gave much importance to reason. Empiricist accepts senseperception as a source of knowledge whereas for Rationalist reason or intellect is the main instrument of knowledge. So, in Western philosophy, the two sources are regarded to be important first is experience, which is admitted by Empiricist and the second one is reason which is adopted by rationalist. The term “experience” means sensational experience whereas the word “reason” stands for knowledge which is based on reasoning.

Descartes, a well known western philosopher gave great importance to mathematical knowledge. According to him, with the help of mathematics one can attain a model of certain knowledge and of the method of obtaining such knowledge. Mathematics is accepted by Descartes as the model of his philosophical method. He attempted to build his theory of knowledge which would base on certainty. For him, certain knowledge cannot be achieved from traditional authoritarian methods because there are many different views on one and the same subject. Therefore, we must follow the method of mathematics. He states that mathematical knowledge is relied on first principles. These principles or axioms are clear and also distinct. They are self-evident truths, those truths on which one cannot be doubted. They are valid in itself. According to him, when we have these self-evident truths, then one can conclude or inferred the theorems with the help of rules of reasoning or logic. The axioms of mathematics will certain then the resulted theorems automatically will be certain. Descartes adopted this method in philosophy because he knew that in mathematical knowledge, there is no need of senseexperience or sensation. For him, the main instrument of mathematical knowledge is the human reasoning. In this way, Descartes stated that one can attain knowledge by pure reasoning. Hence, Rationalism is a theory which states reasoning (inference) is a source of all human knowledge.

Locke an empiricist philosopher states that knowledge of human composes of ideas and it operated with ideas. The first task of Locke was to find the origin of knowledge or the origin of ideas by which knowledge operates. Anything of which one can think is called idea. Idea is that which directly conceived by the human mind. According to Locke, ideas are not innate. In his work “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, he says human mind is free from ideas in the beginning. Our mind is a clear state; it is totally blank in the beginning. There are no innate ideas in the mind. All ideas come from experience. By sense-experience or inner reflection knowledge can be derived. According to him, ideas come into existence by outer experience which is senseperceptions and some come into existence by reflection or through inner experience and the rest ideas come from both sensation and reflection. For Locke, Human mind is not active in obtaining these ideas, but through sensation and reflection one can perceive the effects of external object and also can experience the inner activities. So, perception being inner and outer is neither mediate nor active. According to Locke, the ideas which we received by sensation and reflection are called simple ideas. Human mind by using their intellectual power can refuse, accept and combine these ideas to then form complex ideas. The Material of the mind is simple ideas. Our mind elaborates these simple ideas in many ways and by doing this our knowledge gets developed. So, by external experiences, the simple ideas are generated in our mind by external things.

Thus, Descartes being a rationalist accepts reason as the source of knowledge. It is objective and universal. On the other hand, Locke being an empiricist accepts senseexperience as a source of knowledge. For him, all ideas come from outer and inner perception (reflection). Here, it can be observed that in Western philosophy the nature of knowledge is the central issue in front of Western philosophers. The philosophers of West accept two sources of knowledge: Sense-experience and Reasoning.

Indian Epistemology is as good as Western and Greek epistemology. The system of Indian philosophy has been divided into two categories:

(a) Heterodox or Nāstik who does not believe in the authority of the Vedas. Cārvāka, Bauddha and Jaina schools come under in this category.

(b) Orthodox or Āstika who believe in the authority of the Vedas. This system is further divided into two-firstly who believe in Vedic texts. Mīmāṃsa and Vedānta come under in this category. Secondly, who based on independent grounds. Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika are come under in this category.

In Indian philosophy, the analysis of knowledge has been the important feature in these famous schools of thought. Different sources of knowledge (pramāṇas) which have been discussed by these schools are: Perception (pratyakṣa), Inference (anumāna), Knowledge by similarity or Comparison (upamāna), Verbal testimony (śabda), Presumption (arthāpatti), Implication (sambhava), Non-existence (abhāva), Tradition (aithiya).

However, the number of these sources of knowledge admitted by every school is different. The sign of epistemology can be traced in some of the hymns of the Rgveda. Thereafter, many philosophical systems introduced and developed their own analysis of the theory of knowledge.

The Sāṃkhya system maintains that the subject is the pure consciousness; the source of knowledge (pramāṇa) is the modification of the intellect by which the self knows an object, knowledge is the reflection of this modification in the human being, prameya is the object appeared to the self by this modification. The two main epistemological works of the Sāṃkhya School are the Sāṃkhya-kārika of Iśvarakṛṣṇa and the Sāṃkhyapravacana-sūtra of Kapila. The Sāṃkhya-kārika states that knowledge is essential and helpful in order to get rid of suffering. According to it, the means of knowledge (pramāṇa) is that through which an object is proved to exist. There are three types of knowledge, namely, sense-cognition (dṛṣṭa), it is a definite knowledge that attained with the help of sense-organs; inference (anumāna), knowledge depended upon the relation of the mark and that to which the mark belongs; and reliable testimony (āpta-vacana), the word said by trust-worthy people. According to this treatise when objects are away from the reach of the senses, they are known by inference called sāmānyatodṛṣṭa and the ultimate reality is known by reliable testimony.^[5] In the Sāṃkhya-pravacana-sūtra, the means of knowledge is defined as a factor that leads to right knowledge. This text also discusses three types of pramāṇa like Sāṃkhya-kārika. According to it, perception or direct knowledge (pratyakṣa) is considered as an act than as a product, and as a form of the object than as an object itself. Inference is defined as knowledge of that, which stands in a certain relation, on the part of one who sees that relation. According to this text, knowledge is the means to attain salvation. The knowledge of discrimination is attained with the help of practice of yoga and renunciation.^[6]

Vaiśeṣika-sūtra, a text written by Kaṇāda, strictly admits two sources of knowledge only: perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna).^[7] The other sources like Analogy (upamāna), verbal testimony (śabda), presumption (arthāpatti), implication (sambhava) and non-existence (abhāva) are regarded as modes of inference.^[8] Inference is the knowledge by means of a mark and it is distinguished by the following relations like (1) this is its effect, (2) this is its cause, (3) this is its conjunct, (4) this is its opposite, (5) this is its co-existent and so on.^[9] The most important subject in the epistemology of the Vaiśeṣika-sūtra is the cognition of substance. Here the reality of substance is not dependent on cognition. The objects of senses are distinct from the objects of knowledge in general. The meaning of this knowledge is identical to the substance, attribute and action. The knowledge of substance, attribute and action is based on the knowledge of generality and particularity. A person who practices yogic concentration can attain a unique kind of knowledge by which the substances, attributes and actions are revealed in their inherent nature.

The Praśastapāda-bhāṣya, commentary of Vaiśeṣika-sūtra, states that cognition is of two types: Right (vidyā) and wrong (avidyā).

(a) Right cognition consists of:
(i) perception (pratyakṣa),
(ii) inference (laiṅgika),
(iii) memory (smṛti), and
(iv) inspired knowledge (ārṣa).^[10]

(b) Wrong cognition consists of:
(i) doubt (saṃśaya),
(ii) error (viparyaya),
(iii) uncertainty (anadhyavasāya) and
(iv) dream (svapna).^[11]

In Indian philosophy, the first systematic school in the field of epistemology is Nyāya. The primary text of this school is Nyāya-sūtra which consists of 530 sūtras arranged in five chapters, is written by Akṣapāda Gautama.^[12] The text defines and discusses about epistemology, logic and dialectics.^[13] According to Nyāya, knowledge is an adventitious attribute of the self. This school defines knowledge as apprehension, cognition, consciousness or manifestation of objects.^[14] According to this system, knowledge is neither the subject nor the object known. It is another form of cognition (buddhi). It means awareness or apprehension of objects. The objects of knowledge are a thing, a quality, an act, the existent as well as the non-existent.

The main aim of Nyāya epistemology is to attain the ultimate goal of life, i.e., liberation, which can be acquired with the help of valid knowledge of a thing constituting reality. It states that with the help of sixteen categories of reality, knowledge is attained and it is validated by perception, inference, analogy and verbal testimony.^[15] Perception is the knowledge that arises from the contact of the senses with their objects. It is of two types: ordinary and extra ordinary.^[16] Inference is a kind of knowledge of an object that arises through a “mark”, the “middle term” (hetu) which is invariably connected with the “major term” (sādhya). It is defined as that cognition which assumes some other cognition. It is of three kinds, priori inference (pūrvavat), posterior inference (śeṣavat) and inference based on uniformity of co-existence (sāmānyato-dṛṣṭa).^[17] Analogy is the knowledge derived from comparison. It is the relation between a word and its denotation. The verbal testimony is the statement of a trust-worthy person. Nyāya maintains that there must be a relation between cognition and reality.^[18] Knowledge is the attribute of the self, while reality exists in the external world.

The Mīmāṃsā epistemology starts with the commentaries of the Mīmāṃsā-sūtra. The oldest commentator, Śabarasvāmin whose work the Śabara-bhāṣya, is accessible nowadays. The other important commentators of this system are Kumārila and Prabhākara. Both Śabarasvāmin and Kumārila, state six sources of knowledge identified by Mīmāṃsā-sūtra, viz., perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), analogy (upamāna), verbal-testimony (śāstram), presumption (arthāpatti), and non-existence (abhāva) in their commentaries.^[19] According to Mīmāṃsā-sūtra, knowledge is the outcome of the contact between the sense organs and their related objects. This indicates that the Mīmāṃsā-sūtra is older than the Nyāya-sūtra. According to Śabarabhāṣya, there is a difference between right and wrong knowledge. Wrong knowledge is when the mind is hindered by sense organ i.e. the eyes or the external object. The right knowledge is when there is no obstruction. The cause of right knowledge is when there is mutual contact between the sense organs, mind and the object.

Buddhist Epistemology began with Diṅnāga approximately one thousand years after the mahāparinirvāṇa of the Śākyamuni Buddha. However the subjects of epistemology can also be found in the earliest teachings of the Buddha in Nikāya literature and some philosophical writings of many famous Buddhist scholars like Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, it was Diṅnāga who systematically developed this logico-epistemological system. One must know that the contribution of Buddhism to profound system of logic and epistemology of Indian philosophy started with Diṅnāga. He was the first Buddhist scholar who arranged the Buddhist theory of knowledge in a systematic order and which became the basis for later Buddhist development of epistemology carried out by Dharmakīrti, Dharmottara, Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśila [Kamalaśīla], Jñānaśrimitra [Jñānaśrīmitra] and Ratnakīrti.

Diṅnāga is known as the father of medieval logic in India. He is said to have brought a new era in the history of logic and epistemology. He treats the theory of the means of knowledge as a subject by itself which is different from the usual observation of the previous Indian philosophical schools which used to deal with the sources and the objects of knowledge together. It is important to study Diṅnāga’s philosophy closely so that his role in Buddhist logico-epistemological system can be determined. This study is one of them.

Diṅnāga’s system of epistemology was supported and followed by Dharmakīrti (C. 600-660 C.E.), who is also known as Kant of India. He tried to enhance Diṅnāga’s philosophy and protect it from criticism by other Indian philosophical schools. At the time of Dharmakīrti, Buddhist epistemology reached its peak. His main contribution to Indian Buddhism can be observed in his seven main texts. In his works he tried to develop a philosophical foundation for Buddhist daily practice and develop a philosophical foundation for Buddhist daily practice and also he modified and established a perfect Buddhist system of logic and epistemology to respond to the need of Indian philosophy during his time.