Part 14 - The Origin of Knowledge (Pramāṇa)

The manner in which knowledge originates is one of the most favourite topics of discussion in Indian philosophy. We have already seen that Sāṃkhya-Yoga explained it by supposing that the buddhi (place of consciousness) assumed the form of the object of perception, and that the buddhi so transformed was then intelligized by the reflection of the pure intelligence or puruṣa. The Jains regarded the origin of any knowledge as being due to a withdrawal of a veil of karma which was covering the allintelligence of the self.

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika regarded all effects as being due to the assemblage of certain collocations which unconditionally, invariably, and immediately preceded these effects. That collocation (sāmagrī) which produced knowlege involved certain non-intelligent as well as intelligent elements and through their conjoint action uncontradicted and determinate knowledge was produced, and this collocation is thus called pramāṇa or the determining cause of the origin of knowledge^[1]. None of the separate elements composing the causal collocation can be called the primary cause; it is only their joint collocation that can be said to determine the effect, for sometimes the absence of a single element composing the causal collocation is sufficient to stop the production of the effect. Of course the collocation or combination is not an entity separated from the collocated or combined things. But in any case it is the preceding collocations that combine to produce the effect jointly.

These involve not only intellectual elements (e.g. indeterminate cognition as qualification (viśeṣaṇa) in determinate perceptions, the knowledge of liṅga in inference, the seeing of similar things in upamāna, the hearing of sound in śabda) but also the assemblage of such physical things (e.g. proximity of the object of perception, capacity of the sense, light, etc.), which are all indispensable for the origin of knowledge. The cognitive and physical elements all co-operate in the same plane, combine together and produce further determinate knowledge. It is this capacity of the collocations that is called pramāṇa.

Nyāya argues that in the Sāṃkhya view knowledge originates by the transcendent influence of puruṣa on a particular state of buddhi; this is quite unintelligible, for knowledge does not belong to buddhi as it is non-intelligent, though it contains within it the content and the form of the concept or the percept (knowledge). The puruṣa to whom the knowledge belongs, however, neither knows, nor feels, neither conceives nor perceives, as it always remains in its own transcendental purity. If the transcendental contact of the puruṣa with buddhi is but a mere semblance or appearance or illusion, then the Sāṃkhya has to admit that there is no real knowledge according to them. All knowledge is false. And since all knowledge is false, the Sāṃkhyists have precious little wherewith to explain the origin of right knowledge.

There are again some Buddhists who advocate the doctrine that simultaneously with the generation of an object there is the knowledge corresponding to it, and that corresponding to the rise of any knowledge there is the rise of the object of it. Neither is the knowledge generated by the object nor the object by the knowledge; but there is a sort of simultaneous parallelism. It is evident that this view does not explain why knowledge should express or manifest its object. If knowledge and the object are both but corresponding points in a parallel series, whence comes this correspondence? Why should knowledge illuminate the object. The doctrine of the Vijñāna vādins, that it is knowledge alone that shows itself both as knowledge and as its object, is also irrational, for how can knowledge divide itself as subject and object in such a manner that knowledge as object should require the knowledge as subject to illuminate it ? If this be the case we might again expect that knowledge as knowledge should also require another knowledge to manifest it and this another, and so on ad infinitum.

Again if pramāṇa be defined as prāpana (capacity of being realized) then also it would not hold, for all things being momentary according to the Buddhists, the thing known cannot be realized, so there would be nothing which could be called Pramāṇa. These views moreover do not explain the origin of knowledge. Knowledge is thus to be regarded as an effect like any other effect, and its origin or production occurs in the same way as any other effect, namely by the joint collocation of causes intellectual and physical^[2]. There is no transcendent element involved in the production of knowledge, but it is a production on the same plane as that in which many physical phenomena are produced^[3].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

“Avyabhicāriṇīmasandigdhārthopalabdhiṃ vidadhatī bodhābodhasvabhāvā sāmagrī pramāṇam .”

     Nyāyamañjarī , p. 12.

Udyotakara however defined “Pramāṇa” as upalabdhihetu (cause of knowledge). This view does not go against Jayanta’s view which I have followed, but it emphasizes the side of vyāpāra or movement of the senses, etc. by virtue of which the objects come in contact with them and knowledge is produced.

Thus Vācaspati says:

“siddhamindriyādi, asiddhañca tatsannikarṣādi vyāpārayannutpādayan karaṇa eva caritārthah karṇavi tvindriyādi tatsannikarṣādi vā nānyaira cantarthamiti sākṣāditfalabdhāveva phale vyāprīyate .”

     Tātparyaṭīkā, p. 15.

Thus it is the action of the senses as Pramāṇa which is the direct cause of the production of knowledge, but as this production could not have taken place without the subject and the object, they also are to be regarded as causes in some sense.

“Pramātṛpratneyayoḥ pramāṇe caritārthatvamacaritārthatvaṃ pramāṇasya tasmāt tadeva phalahetoḥ. Pramātṛprameye tu phaloddeśena pruvṛtte iti taddhetū kathañcit.”

     Ibid. p. 16.

[2]:

See Nyāyamañjarī, , pp. 12-26.

[3]:

Discussing the question of the validity of knowledge Gaṅgeśa, a later naiyāyika of great fame, says that it is derived as a result of our inference from the correspondence of the perception of a thing with the activity which prompted us to realize it. That which leads us to successful activity is valid and the opposite invalid. When I am sure that if I work in accordance with the perception of an object I shall be successful, I call it valid knowledge. Tattvacintāmaṇi, K. Tarkavāgīśa’s edition, Prāmāṇyavāda.