should therefore be called false nayas
(_nayabhasa_) [Footnote ref 1].

Knowledge, its value for us.

The Buddhist Dharmottara in his commentary on _Nyayabindu_
says that people who are anxious to fulfil some purpose or end in
which they are interested, value the knowledge which helps them
to attain that purpose. It is because knowledge is thus found
to be useful and sought by men that philosophy takes upon it the
task of examining the nature of true knowledge (_samyagjnana_ or
_prama@na_). The main test of true knowledge is that it helps us
to attain our purpose. The Jains also are in general agreement with the
above view of knowledge of the Buddhists [Footnote ref 2]. They also

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[Footnote 1: The earliest mention of the doctrine of syadvada and
saptabha@ngi probably occurs in Bhadrabahu's (433-357 B.C.) commentary
_Sutrak@rtanganiryukti_.

[Footnote 2: See _Prama@na-naya-tattvalokala@mkara_ (Benares), p. 16; also
_Parik@sa-mukha-suira-v@rtti_ (Asiatic Society), ch. I.]

182

say that knowledge is not to be valued for its own sake. The
validity (_prama@nya_) of anything consists in this, that it directly
helps us to get what is good for us and to avoid what is bad
for us. Knowledge alone has this capacity, for by it we can
adapt ourselves to our environments and try to acquire what
is good for us and avoid what is bad [Footnote ref 1]. The conditions that
lead to the production of such knowledge (such as the presence
of full light and proximity to the eye in the case of seeing an
object by visual perception) have but little relevancy in this connection.
For we are not concerned with how a cognition is
produced, as it can be of no help to us in serving our purposes.
It is enough for us to know that external objects under certain
conditions assume such a special fitness (_yogyata_) that we can
have knowledge of them. We have no guarantee that they
generate knowledge in us, for we are only aware that under
certain conditions we know a thing, whereas under other conditions
we do not know it [Footnote ref 2]. The enquiry as to the nature of the
special fitness of things which makes knowledge of them possible
does not concern us. Those conditions which confer such
a special fitness on things as to render them perceivable have but
little to do with us; for our purposes which consist only in the
acquirement of good and avoidance of evil, can only b