Mantras and Sabda in the Nyaya Manjari of Jayanta Bhatta

Eliot Deutsch who died last month at the age of 89 provides a corrective note to the very common attitude of embarrassment some prominent Western scholars of Indian philosophy feel because of its religious aspect. Somehow they think that this is, as it were, déclassé, and not quite respectable. This perhaps accounts for the popularity of the Nyaya system which is strongly logical.

Advaita Vedanta is the non-dualistic system of Vedanta expounded primarily by Sankara (ca. 788-820). It has been, and continues to be, the most widely accepted system of thought among philosophers in India, and it is, we believe, one of the greatest philosophical achievements to be found in the East or the West.(from Adavita Vedanta; A Philosophical Reconstruction)

Below:
Advaita Vedanta is a religion as much as it is a technical philosophy; it is a way of spiritual realization as well as a system of thought. This intimacy between religion and philosophy in Advaita Vedanta, as in much of the Indian tradition, has been pointed out frequently. It bears constant repetition, however, for there are still a few philosophers who, in their desire to find a dominant naturalistic tradition in India, are determined to neglect (or even to deny) this relationship.

As I wrote
credence
even in Nyaya the Vedas are regarded as authoritative and effective.

Similarly the truth of mantras is cognized by us. In cases of scorpion-bites or snake-bites or the taking of poison (magic formulas) are recited to heal the persons. The persons affected get themselves immune from poison.........When evil clouds which hurl thunderbolts at random hover over the cornfields the dange of crops is averted by the recital of mantras.

Note on Non-Apprehension of Existence in Nyaya Manjari

A pramana has been defined as a means of valid knowledge. One of the means of valid knowledge that has been accepted by advaita vedanta and rejected by the Nyaya school is that of anupalabadhi. The standard example is – 'There is no jar on the floor'. This is interpreted as non-apprehension of existence by Swami Madhavananda in Vedanta Paribhasa(trans) and as non-perception by Janaki Vallabha Bhattacharyya in Nyaya Manjari(trans). This divergence is the crux of their disagreement. I find the justification of the pramana in V.P. to be sound but incomplete and its rejection in N.M. not convincing but nevertheless raising some interesting points.

The Nyaya position has an intuitive immediacy. Not seeing the jar on the floor is a matter of simple perception. The visual input does not include a jar. Agreed says the Vedantin you are seeing something viz.the floor and at that locus you do not see a jar. This non-apprehension is an instrument of knowledge or a means of knowledge. Here I venture my own interpretation of this point. Clearly a non-apprehension cannot be a means of knowledge of itself or an otiose, pointless self-referential observation. What then is its informational content? Must it not be related to a context of expectation? You were told that there was a jar on the floor in the kitchen. On going there you don't see one and make the canonical report.

Then there was the case of the dog that did not bark in the night-time.

- Look at the ceiling' I said to my wife, what do you not see?
- Puzzled, she replied, what am I looking for?
- Water.
- You mean you fixed the leak in the shower stall upstairs.

(domestic fiction)

Jayanta Bhatta mentions in Nyaya Manjari similar real situations with a context of non-apprehension.

Happiness or sorrow arises in the absence of a foe or of a friend. A man places his feet on the way seeing the absence of a thorn on it. A man is earnest to search for the material of a jar if he finds that no jar has come into being. A man refrains from taking medicine when he realises that he is free from disease. No thoughtful man can deny objective existence to negation having noticed that it actually exists and many worldly transactions are based on it.

(pg.124/160 adobe pdf)

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)