My tentative sense of these ready to hand examples is that they involve unitary instances. One hammer
is much like any other qua hammer even though there are many kinds with specialised functions; ball pein, cross pein, claw etc.
Kumarila in Slokavarttika dismisses the idea of ‘twins’ as an exemplar of
similarity because there we see that they are. (22/3 pg.226 Jha trans.) The
moment you utter the word ‘twin’ you admit similarity, it is not something that
you might discover about twins or peas.
In a case where we have the recognition of a single class as belonging to the principle objects themselves (and not to the parts), there we have a notion (of identity) such as “this is that very thing”; and where there is difference, there we have the notion of Similarity only.When the person roaming in the forest sees a strange animal, he perceives the beast. At one and the same time he is aware of its ‘cowness’and that it is a gavaya. That is the upamana. To put it portentously we are moving towards a scientifically actionable knowledge of genus and species.
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