Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/429

 xJ NyZiya Epistenzology 4 1 3 external object was also blue. Knowledge does not determine the external world but simply enforces our convictions about the ex- ternal world. So far as knowledge leads us to form our convictions of the external world it is pramal)a, and so far as it determines our attitude towards the external world it is pramal)aphala. The question how knowledge is generated had little importance with them, but how with knowledge we could form convictions of the external world was the most important thing. Knowledge was called pramal)a, because it was the means by which we could form convictions (adhyavasiiya) about the external world. Nyaya sought to answer the question how knowledge was generated in us, but could not understand that knowledge was not a mere phenomenon like any other objective phenomenon, but thought that though as a gUl)a (quality) it was external like other gUl)as, yet it was associated with our self as a result of colloca- tions like any other happening in the material world. Pramal)a does not necessarily bring to us new knowledge (anad/zigatiidhi- Kanr) as the Buddhists demanded, but whensoever there were collocations of pramarya, knowledge was produced, no matter whether the object was previously unknown or known. Even the knowledge of known things may be repeated if there be suitable collocations. Knowledge like any other physical effect is pro- duced whenever the cause of it namely the pramal)a collocation is present. Categories which are merely mental such as class (siimii1lya), inherence (samm}iiJ1a), etc., were considered as having as much independent existence as the atoms of the four elements. The phenomenon of the rise of knowledge in the soul was thus conceived to be as much a phenomenon as the turning of the colour of the jug by fire from black to red. The element of indeterminate consciousness was believed to be combining with the sense contact, the object, etc. to produce the determinate con- sciousness. There was no other subtler form of movement than the molecular. Such a movement brought about by a certain collocation of things ended in a certain result (pha/a). J nana (knowledge) was thus the result of certain united collocations (samagri) and their movements (e.g. contact of manas with soul, of manas with the senses, of the senses with the object, etc.). This confusion renders it impossible to understand the real philo- sophical distinction between knowledge and an external event of the objective world. Nyaya thus fails to explain the cause