Abstract
One of the distinctive features of the Indian epistemologies is the recognition by most schools of philosophy of a type of cognition that is generated by words themselves. There were, to be sure, philosophies that did not countenance such a type of cognition. But every one took note of such a thesis, and those who did not recognise that sort of cognition felt obliged to argue against its claim to recognition. However, in order to correctly understand the issues involved, we must attend to the way the controversy was formulated. The question was: is Śabda (word) a pramāṇa, a means of knowledge? The two key terms involved in this question need to be correctly understood. ‘Śabda’ means sound or word, in the present context, it should be taken to mean an utterance of a sentence.
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Notes
“Sàk$atkrtadharma“ (Vatsyâyana Bha,cya on Nyaya Sfitra 1.1.7) Vâcaspati in his Tatparyatîka on 1.1.7. writes: ”sudrdhena pramanenavadharitah... padartha hitahitapraptipariharaprayojana yena sa“.
Yathadretasya’rthasya cikhyapayicaya prayukta“ (Vatsyayana Bhafya on Nyâya Siltra 1.1.7) The clause is needed, Vâcaspati adds, because one may know the truth but owing to lack of compassion or due to laziness may not instruct; or, owing to jealosy, anger or intoxication may instruct what is false.
Thus Annambhatta in Tarkasamgraha defines it as ’ padanamavilambena uccaranam“ but in his dîpika writes: ”avilambena padàrtho-pasthitih sannidhih.“
Yena padena vina yatpadasyanvayananubhavatvam tena padena saha tasyakankfa.“ (Vigvanâtha, Sidhantamuktavalî on Karika 84).
artha’badho yogyata“ (Tarkasamgraha).
Dharmottara in his Tîkâ on Dharmakîrti’s Nyayabindu refers to the view that “abhiprayakaryacchabdajjatam jnanamabhiprayalambanam sadarthamicchatah sabdaprayogah” (Nyayabindu ed. Chandrasekhara Sastri, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, Banaras, 1954, p. 65). This view is ascribed by Stcherbatsky to Vinîtadeva (Buddhist Logic, Vol. 2, Dover, 1956, p. 167, fn. 4).
Srîîdhara gives this defense in Nyayakandalî.
VAcaspati gives this inference in his Tatparyatîkâ (ed. Dravid, Kashi edition, pp. 201–7).
Siddhantamuktavalî on Kârikâ 141.
For this theory, known as paratahpramanyavada, see my Gahge.£a’s Theory of Truth, Second edition, Delhi: Motilal Banarasi Dass, 1989.
On this entire issue, cp. my forthcoming book Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought (Oxford Universtiy Press, 1991).
Cp. Arindam Chakraborty, “Understanding Falsehoods; A Note on the Nyâya concept of Yogyata”, The Journal of the Asiatic Society, XXVIII, 1986, pp. 10–20 ).
Cp. Chakraborty’s paper referred under note 12.
See Sibajiban Bhattacharya, “Some Features of the Technical Language of NavyaNyAya”, Philosophy East and West, XL, 1990, pp. 129–49.
On the concept of ‘limitor’, also see note 14 above.
On the concept of ‘property’ (Dharma), see Bimal K. Matilal, Logic, Language and Reality. An Introduction to Indian Philosophical Studies. Delhi: Motilal Banarasi Dass, 1985, esp. pp. 115–40.
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Mohanty, J.N. (1994). Is there an Irreducible Mode of Word-Generated Knowledge?. In: Matilal, B.K., Chakrabarti, A. (eds) Knowing from Words. Synthese Library, vol 230. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2018-2_3
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