Upamana Pramana and Universals

 If we are not thinking of universals as abstract entities in Platonic heaven or in the mind, but as individuals out there in the world, it is easier to grasp the idea that they can be perceived. The Nyāya equation of universals and properties might tempt one to think that Nyāya conceives of universals as natural properties in David Lewis’ sense of the term (Lewis, 1983), but such is not the case. Nyāya universals are as robust as Armstrong’s universals: they capture facts of resemblance and the causal powers of things.

(from Perceptual Experience and Concepts in Classical Indian Philosophy by Monima Chada (S.E.P. entry))

I am beset by the feeling that the Nyaya account of universals is a dormitive one. (as in 'Opium makes you sleepy because of its dormitive effect) It dissolves the problem by holding that we just know this individual Bos Taurus has 'cowness'. Yet at the same time Chada , after Armstrong, mentions that universals capture facts of resemblance. For me, I'm noodling here, this goes close to the pramana upamana translated as comparison/analogy. The 'cowness' of the gavaya (Bos Gaurus) allows us access to that universal. Upamana as an underived means of valid knowledge supervenes on those many instances of awareness that allow us access to general terms.

Let's suppose that there is a city dweller who has never seen a cow. This individual is brought to a zoo and shown a beast there and told 'that's a cow'. Later in an excursion to the countryside he sees in a farmer's field many such beasts. 'Oh, cows'.

What is the difference between this imagined instruction propaeduetic to the acquiring of 'the denotation of a word and its meaning' (Jayanta Bhatta) and the well known encounter with a gavaya that is like a cow. Why should we emphasize the previously unencountered aspect of the gavaya. Is this not a special instance of the general procedure of the acquirement of the use of general terms, genus and species, universals etc. What I am questioning here is the notion that universals are grasped using the power of extraordinary perception. I don't doubt that once those general terms/concepts are acquired then the power to use them is absorbed into perception giving rise to the extraordinary perception idea.

Jayanta Bhatta seems at times to veer towards a similar (!) view

If it is held that the relation of denotation obtains between a word and a universal (a class) then it is also a fact that a universal is not definitely known unless an individual is perceived.

(fromNyaya Manjari on Upamana)