The third pramana, which is admitted by Nyaya and not by Vaisheshika, is upamana, and consists in associating a thing unknown before with its name by virtue of its similarity with some other known thing. Thus a man of the city who has never seen a wild ox (gavaya) goes to the forest, asks a forester - “what is gavaya?” and the forester replies - “oh, you do not know it, it is just like a cow”; after hearing this from the forester he travels on, and on seeing a gavaya and finding it to be similar to a cow he forms the opinion that this is a gavaya. This knowing an hitherto unknown thing by virtue of its similarity to a known thing is called upamana.

If some forester had pointed out a gavaya to a man of the city and had told him that it was called a gavaya, then also the man would have known the animal by the name gavaya, but then this would have been due to testimony (shabda-pramana). The knowledge is said to be generated by the upamana process when the association of the unknown animal with its name is made by the observer on the strength of the experience of the similarity of the unknown animal to a known one. The naiyayikas are thorough realists, and as such they do not regard the observation of similarity as being due to any subjective process of the mind. Similarity is indeed perceived by the visual sense but yet the association of the name in accordance with the perception of similarity and the instruction received is a separate act and is called upamana (1).

Shabda-pramana or testimony is the right knowledge which we derive from the utterances of infallible and absolutely truthful persons. All knowledge derived from the Vedas is valid, for the Vedas were uttered by Ishvara himself. The Vedas give us right knowledge not of itself, but because they came out as the utterances of the infallible Ishvara. The Vaisheshikas did not admit shabda as a separate pramana, but they sought to establish the validity of testimony (shabda) 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 Vaisheshika sutras, which tacitly admit the validity of the scriptures on its own authority. But anyhow this was how Vaisheshika was interpreted in later times.

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.” When Prashastapada held that upamana should be treated as a case of testimony (aptavacana), he had probably this interpretation in view. But Udyotakara and Vacaspati hold that it was not by the instruction alone of the forester that the association of the name “wild ox” was made, but there was the perception of similarity, and the memory of the instruction of the forester too. So it is the perception of similarity with the other two factors as accessories that lead us to this association called upamana. What Vatsyayana meant is not very clear, but Dinnaga supposes that according to him the result of upamana was the knowledge of similarity or the knowledge of a thing having similarity. Vacaspati of course holds that he has correctly interpreted Vatsyayana’s intention. It is however definite that upamana means the associating of a name to a new object (samakhyasambandhapratipattirupamanarthah, Vatsyayana). Jayanta points out that it is the preception of similarity which directly leads to the association of the name and hence the instruction of the forester cannot be regarded as the direct cause and consequently it cannot be classed under testimony (shabda). See Prashastapada and Nyayakandali, pp. 220-22, Vatsyayana, Udyotakara, Vacaspati and Jayanta on Upamana.

cow, inference, observation, perception, realists, right knowledge, testimony, validity, vedas, virtue, visual sense