A History of Indian Philosophy Part 23

The second is the advanced state where not only there is full consciousness that there is no self, but there is also the comprehension that neither these nor the doctrines of other heretics may be said to exist, and that there is none of the dharmas that appears. This is called the _arthapravicayadhyana_, for the sage concentrates here on the subject of thoroughly seeking out (_pravichaya_) the nature of all things (_artha_).

The third dhyana, that in which the mind realizes that the thought that there is no self nor that there are the appearances, is itself the result of imagination and thus lapses into the thatness (_tathata_). This dhyana is called _tathatalambana_, because it has for its object tathata or thatness.

The last or the fourth dhyana is that in which the lapse of the mind into the state of thatness is such that the nothingness and incomprehensibility of all phenomena is perfectly realized;

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and nirvana is that in which all root desires (_vasana_) manifesting themselves in knowledge are destroyed and the mind with knowledge and perceptions, making false creations, ceases to work. This cannot be called death, for it will not have any rebirth and it cannot be called destruction, for only compounded things ([email protected]@rta_) suffer destruction, so that it is different from either death or destruction. This nirvana is different from that of the s'ravakas and the pratyekabuddhas for they are satisfied to call that state [email protected], in which by the knowledge of the general characteristics of all things (transitoriness and misery) they are not attached to things and cease to make erroneous judgments [Footnote ref 1].

Thus we see that there is no cause (in the sense of ground) of all these phenomena as other heretics maintain. When it is said that the world is maya or illusion, what is meant to be emphasized is this, that there is no cause, no ground. The phenomena that seem to originate, stay, and be destroyed are mere constructions of tainted imagination, and the tathata or thatness is nothing but the turning away of this constructive activity or nature of the imagination (_vikalpa_) tainted with the a.s.sociations of beginningless root desires (_vasana_) [Footnote ref 2]. The tathata has no separate reality from illusion, but it is illusion itself when the course of the construction of illusion has ceased. It is therefore also spoken of as that which is cut off or detached from the mind (_cittavimukta_), for here there is no construction of imagination (_sarvakalpanavirahitam_) [Footnote ref 3].

Sautrantika Theory of Perception.

Dharmottara (847 A.D.), a commentator of Dharmakirtti's [Footnote ref 4]

(about 635 A.D.) _Nyayabindu_, a Sautrantika logical and epistemological work, describes right knowledge (_samyagjnana_) as an invariable antecedent to the accomplishment of all that a man

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[Footnote 1: _Lankavatarasutra_, p. 100.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 109.]

[Footnote 3: This account of the Vijnanavada school is collected mainly from _Lankavatarasutra_, as no other authentic work of the Vijnanavada school is available. Hindu accounts and criticisms of this school may be had in such books as k.u.marila's _S'loka varttika_ or [email protected]'s bhasya, II. ii, etc. [email protected]'s _Mahayanasutralamkara_ deals more with the duties concerning the career of a saint (_Bodhisattva_) than with the metaphysics of the system.]

[Footnote 4: Dharmakirtti calls himself an adherent of Vijnanavada in his _Santanantarasiddhi_, a treatise on solipsism, but his _Nyayabindu_ seems rightly to have been considered by the author of [email protected]@tippani_ (p. 19) as being written from the Sautrantika point of view.]

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desires to have (_samyagjnanapurvika [email protected]_) [Footnote ref 1]. When on proceeding, in accordance with the presentation of any knowledge, we get a thing as presented by it we call it right knowledge. Right knowledge is thus the knowledge by which one can practically acquire the thing he wants to acquire (_arthadhigati_).

The process of knowledge, therefore, starts with the perceptual presentation and ends with the attainment of the thing represented by it and the fulfilment of the practical need by it (_arthadhigamat [email protected] [email protected]_). Thus there are three moments in the perceptual acquirement of knowledge: (1) the presentation, (2) our prompting in accordance with it, and (3) the final realization of the object in accordance with our endeavour following the direction of knowledge. Inference is also to be called right knowledge, as it also serves our practical need by representing the presence of objects in certain connections and helping us to realize them. In perception this presentation is direct, while in inference this is brought about indirectly through the [email protected] (reason). Knowledge is sought by men for the realization of their ends, and the subject of knowledge is discussed in philosophical works only because knowledge is sought by men. Any knowledge, therefore, which will not lead us to the realization of the object represented by it could not be called right knowledge. All illusory perceptions, therefore, such as the perception of a white conch-sh.e.l.l as yellow or dream perceptions, are not right knowledge, since they do not lead to the realization of such objects as are presented by them. It is true no doubt that since all objects are momentary, the object which was perceived at the moment of perception was not the same as that which was realized at a later moment. But the series of existents which started with the first perception of a blue object finds itself realized by the realization of other existents of the same series (_niladau ya eva [email protected] paricchinno nilajnanena sa eva tena [email protected] tena nilajnanam [email protected]_) [Footnote ref 2].

When it is said that right knowledge is an invariable antecedent of the realization of any desirable thing or the r.e.t.a.r.ding of any undesirable thing, it must be noted that it is not meant

[Footnote 1: Brief extracts from the opinions of two other commentators of _Nyayaybindu_, Vinitadeva and S'antabhadra (seventh century), are found in [email protected]_, a commentary of _Nyayabindutika_ of Dharmmottara, but their texts are not available to us.]

[Footnote 2: [email protected]@tippani_, p. 11.]

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that right knowledge is directly the cause of it; for, with the rise of any right perception, there is a memory of past experiences, desire is aroused, through desire an endeavour in accordance with it is launched, and as a result of that there is realization of the object of desire. Thus, looked at from this point of view, right knowledge is not directly the cause of the realization of the object.

Right knowledge of course directly indicates the presentation, the object of desire, but so far as the object is a mere presentation it is not a subject of enquiry. It becomes a subject of enquiry only in connection with our achieving the object presented by perception.

Perception (_pratyaks'a_) has been defined by Dharmakirtti as a presentation, which is generated by the objects alone, una.s.sociated by any names or relations (_kalpana_) and which is not erroneous ([email protected]_) [Footnote ref 1]. This definition does not indeed represent the actual nature (_svarupa_) of perception, but only shows the condition which must be fulfilled in order that anything may be valid perception. What is meant by saying that a perception is not erroneous is simply this, that it will be such that if one engages himself in an endeavour in accordance with it, he will not be baffled in the object which was presented to him by his perception (_tasmadgrahye arthe vasturupe yadaviparyastam tadabhrantamiha veditavyam_}. It is said that a right perception could not be a.s.sociated with names (_kalpana_ or _abhilapa_). This qualification is added only with a view of leaving out all that is not directly generated by the object. A name is given to a thing only when it is a.s.sociated in the mind, through memory, as being the same as perceived before. This cannot, therefore, be regarded as being produced by the object of perception. The senses present the objects by coming in contact with them, and the objects also must of necessity allow themselves to be presented as they are when they are in contact with the proper senses. But the work of recognition or giving names is not what is directly produced by the objects themselves, for this involves the unification of previous experiences, and this is certainly not what is presented

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[Footnote 1: The definition first given in the _Pramanasamucaya_ (not available in Sanskrit) of [email protected] (500 A.D.) was "_Kalpanapodham_."

According to Dharmakirtti it is the indeterminate knowledge (_nirvikalpa jnana_) consisting only of the copy of the object presented to the senses that const.i.tutes the valid element presented to perception. The determinate knowledge (_savikalpa jnana_), as formed by the conceptual activity of the mind identifying the object with what has been experienced before, cannot be regarded as truly representing what is really presented to the senses.]

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to the sense ([email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected] [email protected]@[email protected]_). In all illusory perceptions it is the sense which is affected either by extraneous or by inherent physiological causes. If the senses are not perverted they are bound to present the object correctly. Perception thus means the correct presentation through the senses of an object in its own uniqueness as containing only those features which are its and its alone ([email protected]@nam_). The validity of knowledge consists in the sameness that it has with the objects presented by it (_arthena saha yatsarupyam [email protected]'yamasya jnanasya [email protected]_).

But the objection here is that if our percept is only similar to the external object then this similarity is a thing which is different from the presentation, and thus perception becomes invalid. But the similarity is not different from the percept which appears as being similar to the object. It is by virtue of their sameness that we refer to the object by the percept (_taditi sarupyam tasya vas'at_) and our perception of the object becomes possible.

It is because we have an awareness of blueness that we speak of having perceived a blue object. The relation, however, between the notion of similarity of the perception with the blue object and the indefinite awareness of blue in perception is not one of causation but of a determinant and a determinate (_vyavasthapyavyavasthapakabhavena_). Thus it is the same cognition which in one form stands as signifying the similarity with the object of perception and is in another indefinite form the awareness as the percept (_tata ekasya [email protected] kincidrupam [email protected] [email protected] na virudhyate_). It is on account of this similarity with the object that a cognition can be a determinant of the definite awareness (_vyavasthapanaheturhi sarupyam_), so that by the determinate we know the determinant and thus by the similarity of the sense-datum with the object [email protected]_) we come to think that our awareness has this particular form as "blue"

([email protected]_). If this sameness between the knowledge and its object was not felt we could not have spoken of the object from the awareness (_sarupyamanubhutam [email protected]_). The object generates an awareness similar to itself, and it is this correspondence that can lead us to the realization of the object so presented by right knowledge [Footnote ref l].

[Footnote 1: See also pp. 340 and 409. It is unfortunate that, excepting the _Nyayabindu, [email protected], [email protected]@tippani_ (St Petersburg, 1909), no other works dealing with this interesting doctrine of perception are available to us. _Nyayabindu_ is probably one of the earliest works in which we hear of the doctrine of _arthakriyakaritva_ (practical fulfilment of our desire as a criterion of right knowledge). Later on it was regarded as a criterion of existence, as Ratnakirtti's works and the profuse references by Hindu writers to the Buddhistic doctrines prove. The word _arthakriya_ is found in Candrakirtti's commentary on Nagarjuna and also in such early works as _Lalitavistara_ (pointed out to me by Dr E.J.

Thomas of the Cambridge University Library) but the word has no philosophical significance there.]

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Sautrantika theory of Inference [Footnote ref 1].

According to the Sautrantika doctrine of Buddhism as described by Dharmakirtti and Dharmmottara which is probably the only account of systematic Buddhist logic that is now available to us in Sanskrit, inference (_anumana_) is divided into two cla.s.ses, called svarthanumana (inferential knowledge attained by a person arguing in his own mind or judgments), and pararthanumana (inference through the help of articulated propositions for convincing others in a debate). The validity of inference depended, like the validity of perception, on copying the actually existing facts of the external world. Inference copied external realities as much as perception did; just as the validity of the immediate perception of blue depends upon its similarity to the external blue thing perceived, so the validity of the inference of a blue thing also, so far as it is knowledge, depends upon its resemblance to the external fact thus inferred (_sarupyavas'addhi tannilaprat.i.tirupam sidhyati_).

The reason by which an inference is made should be such that it may be present only in those cases where the thing to be inferred exists, and absent in every case where it does not exist. It is only when the reason is tested by both these joint conditions that an unfailing connection (_pratibandha_) between the reason and the thing to be inferred can be established. It is not enough that the reason should be present in all cases where the thing to be inferred exists and absent where it does not exist, but it is necessary that it should be present only in the above case. This law (_niyama_) is essential for establis.h.i.+ng the unfailing condition necessary for inference [Footnote ref 2]. This unfailing natural connection (_svabhavapratibandha_) is found in two types

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[Footnote 1: As the [email protected]_ of Dinnaga is not available in Sanskrit, we can hardly know anything of developed Buddhist logic except what can be got from the [email protected]_ of Dharmmottara.]

[Footnote 2: _tasmat [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] yena pratibandho gamyeta sadhanyasa sadhyena. [email protected]_, p. 24.]

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of cases. The first is that where the nature of the reason is contained in the thing to be inferred as a part of its nature, i.e. where the reason stands for a species of which the thing to be inferred is a genus; thus a stupid person living in a place full of tall pines may come to think that pines are called trees because they are tall and it may be useful to point out to him that even a small pine plant is a tree because it is pine; the quality of pineness forms a part of the essence of treeness, for the former being a species is contained in the latter as a genus; the nature of the species being identical with the nature of the genus, one could infer the latter from the former but not _vice versa_; this is called the unfailing natural connection of ident.i.ty of nature (_tadatmya_).

The second is that where the cause is inferred from the effect which stands as the reason of the former. Thus from the smoke the fire which has produced it may be inferred. The ground of these inferences is that reason is naturally indissolubly connected with the thing to be inferred, and unless this is the case, no inference is warrantable.

This natural indissoluble connection (_svabhavapratibandha_), be it of the nature of ident.i.ty of essence of the species in the genus or inseparable connection of the effect with the cause, is the ground of all inference [Footnote ref 1]. The svabhavapratibandha determines the inseparability of connection (avinabhavaniyama) and the inference is made not through a series of premisses, but directly by the [email protected] (reason) which has the inseparable connection [Footnote ref 2].

The second type of inference known as pararthanumana agrees with svarthanumana in all essential characteristics; the main difference between the two is this, that in the case of pararthanumana, the inferential process has to be put verbally in premisses.

Pandit Ratnakarasanti, probably of the ninth or the tenth century A.D., wrote a paper named _Antarvyaptisamarthana_ in which

[Footnote 1: _na hi yo yatra svabhavena na [email protected] sa tam [email protected]'yameva na vyabhicarat.i.ti nasti tayoravyabhicaraniyama. [email protected]_, p. 29.]

[Footnote 2: The inseparable connection determining inference is only possible when the [email protected] satisfies the three following conditions, viz. (1) [email protected] (existence of the [email protected] in the [email protected] thing about which something is inferred); (2) [email protected] (existence of the [email protected] in those cases where the sadhya oc probandum existed), and (3) [email protected] (its non-existence in all those places where the sadhya did not exist). The Buddhists admitted three propositions in a syllogism, e.g. The hill has fire, because it has smoke, like a kitchen but unlike a lake.]

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