About the Book:
Antarvyapti, hitherto an untouched area of Indian Logic, is the foundation of the Buddhist and the Jaina theory of anumana. The book not only discusses the theory of antarvyapti to its minutest details but also provides an English translation of Antarvyapti Samarthanam of Ratnaka-rasantipada and an edited version of this Sanskrit text. In this book the author, who himself is a student of Nyaya, tries to defend the Nyaya position.
About the Author:
Arun Mishra (born in December 1956) was trained in Nyaya by his uncle Pandit Kundanath, alias Phekan Mishra, in the family itself which till today is considered as the centre of Nyaya in Mithila. The author has translated Vyapti Nirmaya and Anupalabadhi Rahasya of Ratnakirti and Jnanasrimitra respectively. He is the editor of the volumeSpirituality, Science and Technology, published by Indian Philosophical Congress. He has also published papers in various philosophical journals. At present he is working onAn Analysis of Nyaya Epistemology: From Gautama to Sankara Misra.
This work will remain incomplete without naming Honourable Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya and Professor S.R. Bhatt. Whether it be symposium or seminar organised by Indian Council of Philosophical Research or Centre for Studies in Civilizations or on any other occasion I always try to learn something from Honourable Professor Chattopadhyaya. I, on all such occasions, take note of the philosophical problems which he raises and the solutions which he offers. My notebook is full of those problems and their solutions by him along with my own reflections upon both. Thus I strongly feel that it is difficult for me to develop myself intellectually without him. I am obliged to Professor S.R. Bhatt also, who equipped me academically to reach to the level where from I try to understand the intricacies and subtlety of philosophy of Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya. Thus I am indebted to both of them and more so to Honourable Professor Chattopadhyaya, who enriches me philosophically by providing his philosophical reflections whenever occasions arise.
Professor R.C. Pradhan of Central University (Hyderabad) and present Member Secretary of Indian Council of Philosophical Research loves me like his younger brother and does not allow me to feel isolated in this maddening crowd of Delhi. Whenever I discuss any philosophical problem with him I am enriched by his insight and experience. His love always inspires me to work harder and harder. I should also express my thanks to Dr. Mercy Helen who relentlessly serves for the cause of philosophy in ICPR.
While translating the text I have followed the para- graphing done by the first editor Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri and referred to the paragraph by the number left of the point in my numbering system. The number which has been given at the right of the point refers to the sentence of the paragraph. Sanskrit sentence too has been given the number, so one may find correspondence between English sentence and Sanskrit sentence with the help of this number. In English translation I have used bracket to spell out the noun to which pronoun of Sanskrit language refers or to complete the sentence and thus to make it meaningful.
The Sanskrit text under consideration is one among the Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts originally published by the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1910. In those days printing technology was not so developed, consequently one may notice methodological as well as textual mistakes. Certainly due to printing errors, corrections made by Mahamaho-padhyaya Haraprasad Shastri sometime occur in square bracket and some time in small bracket. I have kept all his corrections under square bracket and corrections done by me under small bracket. While doing so I have not disturbed the original. I have made the following changes in the text:
(i) I think that a Sanskrit sentence should not end with .an anusvaranta pada, so I have opted for hlanta pada and kept the original outside the bracket.
(ii) At few places I have given the punctuation mark for full stop and at some places I have shifted the position of the same to make the sentence consistent with the structure of the argument. Wherever I have done so, I have tried my best to retain the original with the help of a footnote. In the footnote I have mentioned where exactly the punctuation mark was situated.
(iii) Carelessness on the part of the printer caused several spelling mistakes. I have corrected them and put them within small brackets while retaining the original outside the bracket.
It would not have been possible for me to submit the manuscript on time without the help of Mr. Vijay Kumar jha. Despite his heavy engagement he personally typed it and made the submission possible. I am obliged to Mr. Ashitava Dutta, a student from Silchar (Assam), who helped me to read the final proof.
I must beg an apology from the departed soul of the great Pandit Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri, if I myself have committed any error or caused any harm to the text. At last I must admit that our Nyaya-systern is so rigorous, sophisticated and complex that I have yet to learn it. Under such a situation one should not expect anything novel or extra ordinary from me. So I must conclude it with a statement of jarannaiyayika Jayanta Bhatta.
"God", said John Locke, "has not been so sparing to man to make them barely two legged creatures and left it to Aristotle to make them rational".' Rationality-our capacity to think and to know the world-is as old as our history of evolution itself. If we go through the history of Philosophy, whether Oriental or Occidental, we find very few philosophers who would reject the validity of inference. Inference is a common translation of anumana, and it is safe to retain this translation. Carvaka philosophers in general and Grammarian, such as Bhartrhari," are among those few Indian philosophers who questioned the validity of inference as a source of knowledge. Their critique is essentially based on their denial of the possibility of necessary concomitance (vyapti) which makes our knowledge of the thing-to-be-inferred (sadbya) possible.
One's ability to prove the thing-to-be-inferred, with the help of the source of knowledge called inference, depends upon the necessary relationship between what is technically called logical mark (sadbana) and the thing- to-be-inferred (sadbya)', The necessary relationship which allows us to infer the thing-to-be-inferred on the basis of our knowledge of the logical mark is called necessary concomitance.
A clear disagreement emerges among Indian logicians from their answers to the following two questions : Where do we ascertain necessary concomitance, and, how do we ascertain it?
To ask the first question, i.e., where do we ascertain the necessary concomitance, is to ask whether necessary concomitance should be ascertained in the subject-of- inference (sadbyadbarmin) or in the corroborative- example (drstantadbarmin). To ask the second question, i.e., how do we ascertain necessary concomitance, is to ask the question regarding the source (pramana) of ascertaining necessary concomitance.
If one ascertains necessary concomitance in the subject-of-inference (sadbyadbarmin), it is called internal- concomitance (antarvyapti). If one ascertains necessary concomitance in the corroborative-example (drstanta- dbarmin), it is called external-concomitance (babirvyapti). Jaina logicianas and the Buddhist logician Ratnakara- santipada are few Indian logicians who argue for internal- concomitance and oppose external one.
From the available resources it appears that jaina logician Siddhasena Divakara was the first one who long before Ratnakarasantipada argued for the theory of internal-concomitance in his famous work entitled Nyayauatara': The age of this Jaina logician is still not known but it is absolutely clear that they were Jaina who, due to their metaphysical commitment, favoured internal- concomitance and opposed external one. As Jaina thinkers had to infer 'a thing has many aspects (anekantatmakam vastu)' from the logical mark 'real (sat)', so they opted for internal-concomitance Similarly Buddhists had to infer sarvam ksanikam (all things are momentary), so it was necessary for them to opt for internal-concomitance. As all things existing under this world are under dispute", so homogeneous (paksa) and hetrogeneous (vipaksa) example is not available in this case of inference. Further, in the case of unavailability of homogeneous or hetrogeneous example the theory of trairupya as formulated by Dignaga and Dharmakirti" cannot justify the validity of the logical mark. Hence to make the logical mark valid it was necessary for them to argue that necessary concomitance must be ascertained in the subject-of- inference itself. Since Jaina logicians have vehemently argued for the theory of internal-concomitance, it is necessary to discuss them along with Ratnakarasantipada's analysis of internal-concomitance.
The locus of ascertaining necessary concomitance
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