Query: materials for refutation of 'sabdanityatva

[Birgit Kellner]

First, I would like to thank all those who responded to my query on
'sabdanityatva. I will just add a few remarks, before I plunge back into the
silence of scratching my head over heaps of texts. 

I started to investigate the subject because it provides the background for
a very short, nevertheless intricately complicated text by
J~naana'sriimitra, which I am currently trying to edit and translate - the
Sarva'sabdabhaavacarcaa. 

It seems that some Naiyaayikas argued on epistemological grounds that one
can perceive the absence of sound, on grounds of its non-cognition
(anupalabdhi). Therefore, sound must be non-eternal. 

In this context, they tried to apply notions which were developed (or at
least ALSO developed) in Buddhist pramaa.na-texts, viz. Dharmakiirti's own
theory of non-cognition and probably even more so Dharmottara's
interpretation: Non-cognition proves an object's non-existence if (1)
another object is cognized as existence, (2) both objects are included in
the same causal complex for their perception (> they are perceptible through
the same sense-faculty). 

This does not only restrict the range of negatable objects to perceptible
objects in general, but, even more, to those objects which are perceptible
IN THE SAME WAY than the one currently perceived. One of the reasons for
this rather curious (at least in my opinion) restriction was that otherwise,
the integrity of the sense-faculties could not be guaranteed. If one wants
to negate an object by its non-perception, one has to exclude obstructing
factors (damaged sense-faculties, insufficient light etc.). In order to
guarantee that, for example, one's eyes are intact, one refers to another,
simultaneous perception. Because I see a spot on the ground, I know that my
eyes and all other conditions are O.K. Because I know that a spot on the
ground and a pot possess the same conditions for their perception, and
because I perceive the bare spot, I can infer the non-existence of the pot.
(J~naana'srii doesn' like this interpretation at all, by the way)

On the other hand, if I perceive a bare spot, I cannot infer the
non-existence of sound, because visual perception does not tell me whether
my ears are blocked or not. Apparently, however, some (presumably)
Nyaaya-authors tried to argue along these lines, i.e. they tried to negate
sound on the grounds of a different sense-perception. 

Others (e.g. Udayana in the Nyaayakusuma~jjalii) argued that this is not
possible, precisely because the spot on the ground is visible, but sound is
audible. Implicitly, this means that one can only negate sound because one
perceives another sound. 

The prima facie interesting point with reference to the Miimaa.msaa lies in
what I would call a microcosmic clash of two macrocosmic conceptions of
existence, which have different implications for the argumentative force of
non-cognition: 

(1) Schools which adhere to a latent notion of existence, i.e. existence as
an unmanifested state, use non-cognition in order to argue "despite x is not
cognized, it nevertheless exists". This is brought out very nicely in the
old lists of the causes for non-cognition (Carakasa.mhitaa etc.), where
non-cognition of existent objects is explained by their being too far away,
too subtle etc.  

(1) Schools which advocate a more "modular" (!), maybe analytical (for lack
of a better word) notion of existence use non-cognition in order to argue
"because x is cognized, it does NOT exist". This is the argument which, for
example, Pak.silasvaamin uses against the Miimaa.msaa in the context of
'sabdanityatvaniraasa. 

I personally find the debate on the eternality of sound interesting,
precisely because it involves these different paradigms of existence,
because it gives rise to quite twisted arguments, because it brings out a
number of ontological subtleties and because it could very well be more
enlightening in terms of arguments on non-existence/non-cognition than the
"standard"-passages on pots & spots in the usual plethora of texts.