[Advaita-l] anvaya vyatireka

Varadaraja Sharma rishyasrunga at rediffmail.com
Thu Sep 23 05:22:01 CDT 2010


Radhe Krishna

Shriman Sivasenani Nori, Radhe Krishna

Shriman, the concept has been explained in a crystal clear manner and I am extremely thankful to you. Decades back when I was in school studying principles of western logic, we were given introduction of Indian Logic also.

In any philosophical discourse, I use to come across mention of Anvaya Vyatireka logic.  Although what is explained was clear to me, the matter explained vis.a.vis Anvaya Vyatireka was elusive.

After the five steps based deduction, I find the crux of the logic is made crystal clear here, i.e

"First anvaya: Wherever there is smoke, there ought to be fire (as in the kitchen); vyatireka: where there is no fire, there ought to be no smoke (as in a lake or a river)"

I remember vaguely the five steps through which the inference is made was explained to us as "Five membered syllogism".  I vaguely again remember of seven membered and eleven membered syllogism. I am not sure.

A confirmation please,

So, if one shows that the symptom exists, and symptom and the 
sAdhya, the truth to be established, co-exist in an anvayi-vyatireki fashion, one has proven one's hypothesis.

Here what is referred as sadhya is, if i correctly understand, the "Udaharana"? i.e the case of kitchen fire & smoke taken as example for the ultimate deduction?

I would try to further understand and refresh the concept in the example given in Ramana maharishi episode

Thank you very much again, for refreshing my memories on logic and especially for the way Anvayi-vyatireki has been explained

Radhe Krishna





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