Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/397

 IX] Jiiti and Sa11Zaviiya 3 81 vrtti), but the establishment of the existence of wholes refutes the argument that jati should be denied, because it involves the concep- tion of a whole (class) consisting of many parts (individuals). The class character or jati exists because it is distinctly perceived by us in the individuals included in any particular class. It is eternal in the sense that it continues to exist in other individuals, even when one of the individuals ceases to exist. When a new in- dividual of that class (e.g. cow class) comes into being, a new relation of inherence is generated by which the individual is brought into relation with the class-character existing in other individuals; for inherence (samaviiya) according to Prabhakara is not an eternal entity but an entity which is both produced and not produced according as the thing in which it exists is non-eternal or eternal, and it is not regarded as one as Nyaya holds, but as many, according as there is the infinite number of things in which it exists. When any individual is destroyed, the class-character does not go elsewhere, nor subsist in that in- dividual, nor is itself destroyed, but it is only the inherence of class-character with that individual that ceases to exist. With the destruction of an individual or its production it is a new relation of inherence that is destroyed or produced. But the class- character or jati has no separate existence apart from the indi vi- duals as Nyaya supposes. .Apprehension of jati is essentially the apprehension of the class-character of a thing in relation to other similar things of that class by the perception of the common characteristics. But Prabhakara would not admit the existence of a highest genus satta (being) as acknowledged by N yaya. He argues that the existence of class-character is apprehended be- cause we find that the individuals of a class possess some common characteristic possessed by all the heterogeneous and disparate things of the world as can give rise to the conception of a separate jati as satta, as demanded by the naiyayikas. That all things are said to be sat (existing) is more or less a word or a name without the corresponding apprehension of a common quality. Our ex- perience always gives us concrete existing individuals, but we can never experience such a highest genus as pure existence or being, as it has no concrete form which may be perceived. When we speak of a thing as sat, we do not mean that it is possessed of any such class-characters as satta (being); what we mean is simply that the individual has its specific existence or svarii-