1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, 95 



error, — it is so fatally bound up with technical terms, that it inevita- 

 bly degenerates into a mere playing with words ; and this tendency, 

 which is to some extent an inherent fault in European, as well as 

 Hindu, mediaeval logic, becomes exaggerated to its height in the 

 modern Nuddea school. 



In three of the toles we had the students exercise themselves in 

 a discussion ; and it was very curious to watch the intense eagerness 

 of the disputants, as well as the earnest sympathy of the surrounding 

 students and Pandits. A successful sophism elicited a smile of ap- 

 probation from all. 



The subject of one of these disputations was Sddhydbhdva or the 

 absence of the major term. I could not follow the intricacies of the 

 argument, but its summary was as follows , — 



All accept that Sddhydbhdva means the absolute absence of fire, 

 as, e. g., in a lake of water. But how is this to be understood? 



a. — In the sentence the lake has the total absence of fire or is 



totally destitute of fire ; it cannot be merely meant that all fire 



collectively is absent, because this equally applies to a volcano, as 



that has indeed fire, but it is only mountainous fire and not kitchen 



fire. The sentence would, in fact, be useless, as it would be as true 



of any thing in the world as of your lake, — nothing can have all 



fire in it. b. — Again, as the volcano has the absence of fire and 



a jar, i. e., has not fire and a jnr both together, this is another way 



in which we might say that the same description would apply (if 



unlimited) to a volcano and a lake. c. — If you say the lake has 



Kebala-vahni-abhava, i. e., has the absence of fire alone, this gives 



rise to a quibble on the meaning of ' alone.' This is met by defining 



it, as "it is not the absence of anything besides fire but only the 



absence of fire," (^^C?"?r ^^t^ iTC^ f%W *{%? ^^T?"), this stops 



the apparent fault (or fallacy) of Ubhayapaksha. Then comes the 



question, " what is the meaning of the absence of all fire?" It is 



explained by c^T^ 3"f% ^1 CN , there not being any fire there, — now 



in the mountain there is some( c^l** ) fii'e, and it is the absence of any 



(C^T^O that distinguishes the lake. Then comes the question, 



what is meant by ' anything besides fire ?' Does fire mean here 



mountain-fire or any kind of fire, and so on, for ever? For the series 



of endlessly emerging quibbles is never stopped by the exhaustion 



of the subject, but only of the disputants or the audience. 



