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The Nyaya theory of Knowledge

by Satischandra Chatterjee | 1939 | 127,980 words

This essay studies the Nyaya theory of Knowledge and examines the contributions of the this system to Indian and Western philosophy, specifically focusing on its epistemology. Nyaya represents a realist approach, providing a critical evaluation of knowledge. The thesis explores the Nyaya's classification of valid knowledge sources: perception, infe...

Part 3 - Memory and Dream Memory (smriti)

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Memory (smriti) is knowledge of one's own past. It is a representative cognition of past experiences due solely to the impressions produced by them. It is thus different from recognition (pratyabhijna) which, according to the Nyaya, is a form of qualified perception and has reference to the direct presentation of some object, although it involves an element of representation. In memory, however, there is only a revival of our past experiences, in the form of ideas and images, in the 3 1 Tarkabhasa, p. 30. 2 Sammskaramatrajanyam jnanam smrtih, Tarkasamgraha, P. 32. 3 Tattvadipika, p. 33.

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same form and order in which they were actually experienced by us at a certain point of past time. The ground or condition of this revival is of course the latent impressions left by our past experiences and retained in the soul.' When the mind comes in contact with such psychic dispositions (bhavana) there is a remembrance of the corresponding original experiences. Memory being thus a cognition, by the same self, of what has been once cognised, is an evidence for the soul's permanence. As to the general character of memory (smriti) we may, therefore, say that it is knowledge arising solely out of the impressions of previous experiences and pertaining to a permanent soul. While memory (smriti) has for its general conditions some original past presentation (purvanubhava) and its impression (samskara), it has a number of specific causes that serve either to retain the impressions or revive them in consciousness, and thereby bring about the phenomenon of memory. Among these are (1) attention (pranidhana) which fixes anything in the mind, (2) association (nibandha) which connects different experiences and makes them suggestive of one another, (3) repetition (abhyasa) which secures persistence for the impressions, (4) sign (linga) that leads the mind to the thing signified, (5) characteristic mark (laksana) that recalls the class to which an object belongs, (6) similarity (sadrsya) that associates the ideas of like things, (7) ownership (parigraha) which is suggestive of the owner or the thing owned, (8) the relation of dependence (asrayasritasambandha) of which one term suggests the other, (9) contiguity (anantaryya) which binds together successive phenomena, (10) separation (viyoga) that frequently reminds one of what he is separated from, (11) identity of function (ekakaryya) that recalls similar agents, (12) enmity (virodha) that suggests the rivals in any sphere, (13) superiority (atisaya) that reminds us of what it is due to, (14) acquisition (prapti) that frequently recalls its source, (15) covering (vyavadhana) that suggests what is covered, (16) the feelings of pleasure and pain (sukhaduhkha), (17) desire and aversion (icchadvesa), 1 Anubhavajanya smrtiheturbhavana, atmamatravrttih, Tarkasamgraha, p. 85.

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(18) fear (bhaya), (19) need (arthitva) that reminds one of their causes and objects, (20) action (kriya) which is suggestive of the agent, (21) the feeling of affection (raga) that often reminds us of its objects, (22) merit (dharma) and (23) demerit (adharma) that are suggestive of the belief in pre-existence and help or hinder the retention of experiences. These causes of memory cannot be simultaneously operative. Hence recollections are not simultaneous but successive in their appearance in consciousness.' memory (smriti) is of two kinds, namely, true (yathartha) and false (ayathartha). It is true when it has its basis in some valid presentation (pramajanya) and is in agreement with the real nature of the remembered objects. On the other hand, memory is false when it arises out of such original cognitions as were erroneous (apramajanya) and so does not accord with the nature of the objects recalled in it. Thus the truth and falsehood of memory depend on those of the corresponding original presentative cognitions (purvanubhava) that constitute the ground of all memory.2 In waking life we have both these kinds of memory (smriti). The voluntary or involuntary recollection of past objects, when we are awake, becomes true or falsc according as it is connected with right or wrong cognitions in the past and so, is or is not in accord with the real nature of the objects remembered. Dreams illustrate what is intrinsically false memory. According to the Nyaya, dream-cognitions are all memory-cognitions and untrue in character.3 They are brought about by the remembrance of objects experienced in the past, by organic disorders and also by the imperceptible influences of past desires and actions (adrsta). Hence dream-cognitions have sometimes a moral value in so far as they produce 1 Nyaya-sutra and Nyaya-Bhasya, 3. 2. 44. 2 Purvanubhavasya yatharthatvayatharthatvabhyam smaranamapi ubhayarupam bhavati, Tarkamrta TM. 3 Svapne tu sarvameva jnanam smaranamayathartham ca, Tarkabhasa, p. 30. 4 Svapnastu anubhutapadarthasmaranaih adrstena dhatudosena ca janyate,

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pleasurable or painful experiences in the self according to the merit or demerit accruing from the actions of waking life. Dream-knowledge, however, is intrinsically false. It is no doubt related to certain objects of the real world. But these objects as cognised in dream are not present to sense. They are either past or remote. Still in dream, objects are actually represented as present. Hence there is in dream a false cognition of the real when it represents the not-present as the present, the 'that' as the 'this." It may so happen that dreams sometimes turn out to be true and tally with the subsequent experiences of waking life. But such correspondence between dream-cognitions and waking experience is neither normal nor invariable. Hence dream can never be called pramana, or the source of such presentative knowledge as has a real and an invariable correspondence with the object. The Nyaya account of dream ignores the fact that dreamcognitions are as good presentations as our ordinary perceptions. Dreams have not the regularity and orderliness of waking perceptions. But otherwise the two are indistinguishable. The presentative character of dreams has been rightly noted by other systems. The Vaisesika considers dream to be a kind of internal perception due to the inner sense (manas) as aided by impressions of past experiences. It is felt as if coming by way of the external senses." The Mimamsa does indeed take dreams as reproductions of past experiences. But it admits that they appear as presentations and are indirectly connected with the real objects of past experiences. The Advaita Vedanta finds in dream a phenomenon of some philosophical significance. In it there is the mental creation of a world under the influence of avidya as aided by the impressions of waking experiences. But the dream-world is quite analogous to the world of sense and the sciences. That the world of our ordinary experience may be a dream is a hypothesis that is admitted even by Russell to be logically possible, though not 1 Dosavasena taditi sthana idamityudayat, Tarkabhasa, P. 30. 2 Padarthadharina-samgraha, pp. 91 f. 4-(0.P. 103) 3 Problems of Philosophy, pp. 34-35 and 191.

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as simple and preferable as the common-sense belief in an external world. In all this we have a just recognition of the presentative character of dream-knowledge, even though it is eventually condemned as false and erroneous. The Nyaya view of dream is defective in so far as it reduces dreamcognitions to false memory. Dream-cognitions are more like perceptions than memory-cognitions. When we recollect a dream we feel such and such objects were seen (not merely remembered) in dream last night.' Dream is a kind of false perception. It may sometimes be excited by a physical cause as when a bell ringing causes us to dream of going to school. But although sometimes started by a physical cause dreams do not follow such causes up to their end. Dreams are generally independent of the impressions produced by physical causes on our body. Even when excited by a physical cause, the series of experiences through which a dream progresses cannot be traced to a corresponding series of physical causes. Still, our dream experiences are more like perceptions than anything else. These have not indeed the force or zwang with which the data of sense come to us. But they seem to possess the vivacity and spontaneity of our ordinary sense perceptions. At least, they are directly given to us like our perceptions. Dreams are experiences which we have, and do not arrive at by any process of reasoning. Hence it is that they are called perceptions. But they are false perceptions because they are contradicted by our waking experiences. To the dreamer, however, they appear as true perceptions, because he cannot relate them to his waking experiences and see how they are contradicted by the latter.' According to the Nyaya, memory (smrti) is not valid knowledge (prama). We can speak of true and false memory (smriti). But even true memory, which gives us a true cognition of some past object, cannot be called prama or valid knowledge. On 1 Cf. R. S. Woodworth, Psychology, 9 th edn., pp. 115-16: "Or you are fully asleep, and then the images that come are dreams and seem entirely real, since contact with the objective situation has been lost."

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this point Indian systems of philosophy are divided in their opinion. Some of them consider memory to be as valid as perception and inference, and look upon it as the source of our knowledge of past facts. The Vaisesika accepts memory as valid knowledge distinguished from all forms of wrong cognition. So too the Jaina philosophy counts memory among the forms of valid mediate knowledge (parokssa jnana). The Advaita Vedanta, we shall sec, is not definitely opposed to memory being regarded as valid knowledge. I 2 The other systems, especially the Nyaya and the Mimamsa, refuse to recognise memory as valid knowledge (prama). The Mimamsa objection against memory, as we shall see more fully hercafter, is that it gives no new knowledge (anadhigata), but is only a reproduction of some past knowledge. The Nyaya, however, does not admit the Mimamsa contention that any knowledge becomes invalid simply because it refers to a previously known object (grhitagrahitakrta). According to it, what makes memory invalid (aprama) is the absence of the character of presentation (anubhuti) in it. Memory may, in some cases, correspond to real objects. Still it is not valid knowledge, since it does not correspond to given objects and does not arise out of the objects themselves (arthajanya). In memory (smrti) we have not a cognition of given objects but a re-cognition of what were given, in the same form and order in which they once existed in the past and have now ceased to exist. That form and order are now past and therefore no longer real, so that between these and their memory-images we cannot speak of a correspondence to the given. Even when an object is first perceived and then immediately remembered, so that perception and immediate memory (smriti) refer to one and the same object and are spoken of as cqually true, we are to observe that the state of memory borrows its validity from the antecedent perception which Cf. Padarthadharina-samgraha, p. 94; Nyayakandali, pp. 256-57. 2 Cf. Tattvarthadhigama-Sutra, i, 9-13.

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produces and fashions it (yacitamandanapraya).' As a matter of fact, however, the object ceases to be given and to be the operative cause of knowledge in memory (smriti). The recollection of long past or remote objects is clearly independent of the cooperation of these objects (anapeksitartha). Memory, being thus based on no given datum (anarthajanya), fails to give valid presentational knowledge (prama), and so, is not a source of knowledge (pramana). An examination of the view that memory (smriti) is not valid knowledge is postponed at this stage. We shall come to it after we have got all that the Nyaya has to say about prama and the pramanas.

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