Original
चन्द्रत्वसाधने हेतावसाधारणता भवेत् ।
प्रसिद्धिव्यतिरेके च वस्तुरूपसमाश्रये ॥ १३९६ ॥candratvasādhane hetāvasādhāraṇatā bhavet |
prasiddhivyatireke ca vasturūpasamāśraye || 1396 ||There would be ‘uniqueness’ only if the probans were meant to prove ‘moon-ness’; as, in the absence of any well-known fact regarding it, it would be based entirely upon the nature of the thing itself.—(1396)
Kamalaśīla
Objection:—“If a three-featured Probans is possible, for the proving of the ‘Moon’, then how is it that your Teacher has asserted that, when a man declares that the Moon is not the Moon,—for the proving of its being the Moon against such a person, there can be no Inference,—as he has asserted in the following passage—‘In the case where there can be no Inference on account of the thing in question being unique, it is excluded by its contrary which is well known in its verbal form; when, for example, it is said that the Hare-holder is the Moon because it is an entity; in a case like this there is no Minor Term’?”
In anticipation of this objection, the following answer has been provided:—[see verse 1396 above]
‘It would be based entirely, etc.’;—i.e. it is in regard to the Probans in the shape of the existence or non-existence of things, that ‘Uniqueness’ has been asserted,—not in regard to a Probans in the form of a. well-known fact; because in the case of the latter, as it is dependent upon the wish of the speaker, the necessary concomitance would always be there. The Inference, without a Corroborative Instance, hàs been spoken of only in the case •where the other party holds a different opinion and denies all experience, and consequently cannot be convinced of the thing being the Moon on the basis of any well-known fact,—nor is there any Inferential Indicative (Probans) based upon the capacity of things by which the Moon-ness could be proved in reference to the Hare-holder,—because the name ‘Moon’ is based upon the mere whim of the speaker and is not an inherent property of the thing concerned. That this is so is clear from the following statement—‘One who does not wish to attribute Moon-ness to the Hare-holder,—what sort of well-known cognition could he want? It is for this reason that the Inference addressed to him has to be without a Corroborative Instance, and hence unique, too specific.’
In place of ‘candratvasādhane’, ‘To prove Moon-ness’, some texts read ‘acandrasādhane’, ‘to prove that it is not-Moon’; and with this reading, the explanation would be as follows:—Where the other party has asserted that ‘The Hare-holder is not the Moon, because it exists’,—when the Probans, ‘because it exists’, has been cited by that party for proving the ‘Non-moon-character’,—then, the person who proceeds to answer him by proving the ‘Moon-character’, has a reason why he cannot put forward an Inference of ‘uniqueness’; and it is this reason that the Teacher has indicated by asserting that ‘where, on account of uniqueness, there is no Inference, etc, etc.’, which refers to the absence of an Inferential Indicative in the shape of the character of the thing concerned, as apart from any well-known fact (which could be cited).—(1396)