syadvada.  The validity of such a judgment is therefore only conditional.  If this is borne in mind when making any judgment according to any naya, the naya is rightly used.  If, however, the judgments are made absolutely according to any particular naya without any reference to other nayas as required by the syadvada doctrine the nayas are wrongly used as in the case of other systems, and then such judgments are false and 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.]

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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 be served by knowledge and not by those conditions of external objects.