Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/348

 33 2 The Nyaya- Vaifeika Philosophy [CH. 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 Vijnana vadins, 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 ob- ject 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 pramal}a be defined as priipa?la (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 pramana. 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 1. 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 phenome,na are produced 2. The four PramaI}as of N yaya. We know that the Carvakas admitted perception (pratyaka) alone as the valid source of knowledge. The Buddhists and the V aiseika admitted two sources, pratyaka and inference (anu- 11liilla) 3. Sarpkhya added sabda (testimony) as the third source; 1 See Nyayamaiijari, pp. 12-26. 2 Discussing the question of the validity of knowledge Gaflgda, a later naiyayika 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. Tattvacinttlmazi, K. TarkavagiSa's edition, Priimiiyaviida.
 * ! The Vaifefika siitras tacitly admit the Vedas as a pramal)a. The view that

Vaise!iiika only admitted two pramal)as, perception and inference, is traditionallyac- cepted, "pratJ'ak!ameka,!lciirviikiiJ.l kaliidasZ/gatalt punaJ.l anu1JIiinafiea faeciipi, etc." I'rasastapada divides all cognition (buddhi) as vidyii (right knowledge) and avidyii (ignorance). Under avidyii he counts sa,!zfaJ'a (doubt or uncertainty), viparyaya (illusion or error), tl1zadhyava.riiya (want of definite knowledge, thus when a man who had never seen a mango, sees it for the first time, he wonders what it may be) and svapna (drt:am). Right knowledge (vidyti) is of four kinds, perception, inference, memory and the supernatural knowledge of the sages (arfa). Interpreting the V'aifefika siUras I. i. 3,