Non-Apprehension of Existence as a Means of Knowledge - Anupalabdhi

The landscape of the pramana anupalabdhi accepted by Advaita is a strange one lit up by flashes of understanding. As ever negation is the way to knowledge. The Nyaya school do not accept non-apprehension of existence as a distinct valid means of knowledge holding that it is based on perception.

First though the positive thesis. Here I follow the line laid down by the Vedanta Paribhasa by Dharmaraja Adhvarindra. Put at its simplest it may seem otiose. Looking at a cleared table I can say ‘there is no jug on the table’. There is a non-apprehension of the existence of a jug. This is different from perception in that I cannot perceive what isn’t there. There is no non-jug that I perceive to be not there. I can further add that if there was a jug on the table I would see it. Only perceptible things are of interest here even if the pramana is not based on perception. It is claimed to be an immediate knowledge not delivered by sense perception. It proceeds direct to the mind.

It might be claimed that a vast number of things that are perceptible and tableable are not there so there is very little value in such information. That’s true but it is not the information but the means that is at issue. In any case this pramana is useful when we notice the absence of something that should be there. The book that was on the table is not there when I go to look for it. If the restaurant manager tells the waiter that ‘there is no water on the table’ that non-apprehension of existence is a direction to action.

My previous remarks on this topic can be found by putting ‘anupalabadhi’ in the search box. Notice the incorrect spelling - without spellcheck my English spelling would be no better.

Gavaya/Bos Gaurus

Assimilation (upamana) is the instrument of assimilative cognition. Assimilative Cognition (upamiti) consists in the of the relation between a name and the object denoted by it. Knowledge of similarity is the efficient instrument of such (karana} cognition.
This may be illustrated thus :
A person happens to be ignorant of the exact meaning of the word gavaya (a particular animal of the bovine species). From a forester, he learns that a gavaya is similar to a cow;; he goes to a forest sees the animal called gavaya, which is similar to a cow and recollects the information conveyed by the assimilative proposition.
Then the assimilative cognition, "This is the animal (of the bovine species) denoted by the word gavaya' arises.Thus ends the chapter on upamana.

(from A Primer of Indian Logic
ACCORDING TO ANNAMBHATTA'S TARKASAMGRAHA translated by S.KUPPUSWAMI SASTRI )

I’m beginning to have an obsession with the gavaya similar in scope to Aunt Betsy Trotwood’s one with the donkeys in David Copperfield. I want to drive them out, I want a gavaya free account of similarity, I want to strip back to the bare wood before all the fancy finishes were applied. Let’s look at it free from the Nyaya version which puts denotation at its centre. Kuppuswami Sastri tells us that this was because they wished to distinguish it from the pramana of anumana or inference.

The Nyaya conception of upamna as a distinct instrument of valid cognition restricts its scope to ascertainment of the denotative or primary significative power of a word (saktigraha). The chief object of the Naiyayikas in so restricting its scope is to save it
from being swallowed up in inference (anumana).

In saving it in this way they missed, I think, the fundamental nature of the judgment this is like x or alternatively this is unlike x or this is the same x that I told you about. What makes this pramana( i.e. means of valid knowledge not reducible to any other), unique and fundamental is that the concept of ‘like’ cannot be taught: it is an immediate intuition. From the further elaboration of this native power denotation may be discovered. Am I saying that it is something that you just ‘see’ and is therefore perception. No, I mean it involves perception plus a judgment.

For the moment the gavayas are out of the garden and back in the forest again.