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112
NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
it really belongs to the object.
It becomes clear that in Nyāya no knowledge is completely false. Even the forms of false knowledge are partially true and not false in all respects. Gangeśa's definition of knowledge makes this point fairly clear. Nyāya position can be stated as with regard to some one of its qualifiers as least a knowledge must be true. This is quite in keeping with its general realistic standpoint. Though a false knowledge is not false in all respects; it must have no qualifiers which do not belong to the qualificandum. The criterion of correspondence is strictly maintained as regards the truth.
In view of these considerations, it has been rightly pointed out. “Gangeśa's concept of truth impiles that truth is a 'hybrid' entity having both epistemic and ontological components.... Truth is a unitary notion having heterogeneous components not merely epistemological”.?
This notion of truth has relevance for Nyāya theory of extrinsic validity of knowledge.
Nyāya philosophers could not agree with the extreme alternative suggested by Mīmāṁsākas and Vedāntins regarding validity of knowledge. According to them, all knowledge cannot be intrisically true. As regards the genesis of truth, they maintain that the truth of a knowledge is not produced by the very conditions that give rise to the knowledge itself. It is rather produced by some extrinsic factors, some additional factors known as guņās or excellences. Similarly, ascertainment of truth depends upon certain external conditions like its production. Nyāya believes in extrinsic nature of truth as well as falsity. Knowledge is
