All knowledge derived from the Vedas is valid, for the
Vedas were uttered by Is'vara himself. The Vedas give us
right knowledge not of itself, but because they came out as the
utterances of the infallible Is'vara. The Vais'e@sikas did not admit
s'abda as a separate prama@na, but they sought to establish the
validity of testimony (_s'abda_) on the strength of inference (_anumiti_)
on the ground of its being the utterance of an infallible
person. But as I have said before, this explanation is hardly
corroborated by the Vais'e@sika sutras, which tacitly admit the
validity of the scriptures on its own authority. But anyhow this
was how Vais'e@sika was interpreted in later times.
Negation in Nyaya-Vais'e@sika.
The problem of negation or non-existence (_abhava_) is of great interest
in Indian philosophy. In this section we can describe its nature only
from the point of view of perceptibility. Kumarila [Footnote ref 2]
____________________________________________________________________
[Footnote 1: See _Nyayamanjari_ on upamana. The oldest Nyaya view was that
the instruction given by the forester by virtue of which the association
of the name "wild ox" to the strange animal was possible was itself
"upamana.
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