(a) Inspite of accepting the intrinsic validity of knowledge, why and how Prabhākara and Kumārila differ in their interpretation…

(a) Prabhākara and Kumārila on erroneous cognition

Shared ground: both accept svataḥ-prāmāṇya, that the validity of a cognition arises from the same conditions that produce it and is known along with it. This creates a problem: if every cognition is valid in itself, how is error possible?

Prabhākara: akhyāti or vivekākhyāti (non-discrimination)

• Every cognition is valid as far as it goes. There is no cognition with a false content.
• In “this is silver” (shell seen as silver), two cognitions occur: perception of a bright “this” and memory of silver seen elsewhere. The memory loses its “that” element (smṛti-pramoṣa) and is not recognised as memory.
• Error is the failure to grasp the difference (viveka) between the two, an omission, not a positive misapprehension. Action (reaching for silver) follows from this non-discrimination.
• Reason: to protect intrinsic validity absolutely, Prabhākara denies that cognition ever presents what is not there.

Kumārila: viparīta-khyāti (misapprehension)

• Error is a single positive cognition that presents the shell as silver, as an object having a character it does not have.
• Validity is intrinsic, but invalidity is extrinsic (parataḥ aprāmāṇya): it is known from a later sublating cognition (bādhaka-jñāna, “this is not silver”) or from a defect in the causes (kāraṇa-doṣa), such as bad light or faulty eyes.
• Real elements (the shell and silver known before) are combined wrongly in judgement.
• Reason: experience shows a unified “this is silver” judgement, not two separate cognitions, and the subject acts as if one object were known.

Evaluation:

• Prabhākara keeps intrinsic validity pure but must explain why non-discrimination should prompt action and why the error feels like one cognition.
• Kumārila fits experience better and gives a clear account of correction, but must admit that some cognitions are positively false, so svataḥ-prāmāṇya becomes a presumption that holds until defeated.
• Nyāya’s anyathākhyāti and Advaita’s anirvacanīya-khyāti stand at either side of this debate.

(b) Trīratna and nairātmya

The Three Jewels (triratna), the objects of refuge:

• Buddha: the awakened one who discovered and taught the path.
• Dharma: his teaching, the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination, and the truth it reveals, nirvāṇa.
• Saṅgha: the community, especially the noble ones (ārya-saṅgha) who have realised the path. Internal relation: the Buddha is the teacher who reveals the Dharma, the Dharma is the medicine, and the Saṅgha are the companions who practise and preserve it. Refuge in one implies the others. In practice the path is lived as the threefold training of śīla, samādhi and prajñā.

Consistency with nairātmyavāda:

• Apparent conflict: refuge seems to need a refuge-giver and a refuge-taker, a lasting Buddha and lasting members. If there is no self, who takes refuge and who is liberated?
• Reply: anātman denies a permanent, independent self (ātman), not the conventional person. Buddha and Saṅgha are names for streams of aggregates (skandha-santāna), real at the level of conventional truth.
• The Buddha is revered not as an eternal soul but as one who realised selflessness. The dharma-kāya of later Mahāyāna is the embodiment of the Dharma, not a soul.
• Refuge works through dependent origination: confidence, practice and insight cause liberation without an owner (“there is suffering but no sufferer”, Visuddhimagga).
• Criticism: devotional practice, especially in Mahāyāna (the eternal Tathāgata, Buddha-nature), tends to treat the Buddha as a lasting being, which strains the no-self doctrine. Within the two-truths framework, however, the Triratna are consistent with nairātmya.

(c) Nyāya reply to Cārvāka on inference

Cārvāka objections:

• Inference depends on vyāpti (universal concomitance of hetu and sādhya), which cannot be known.
• Not by perception: perception grasps only present particulars, not all past, present and future cases.
• Not by inference: that would be circular or lead to infinite regress. Not by testimony or comparison, which themselves rest on inference.
• One can never be sure that no hidden condition (upādhi) is present. So inference gives only probability, and only perception is valid.

Nyāya replies:

• Self-refutation: to deny inference, the Cārvāka must infer that others hold mistaken views, or argue from the failure of some inferences to the failure of all, which is itself inference. Daily life (seeing smoke and fetching water for fire) depends on it.
• Vyāpti is known by repeated observation of co-presence and co-absence (anvaya-vyatireka), with no contrary instance (vyabhicāra-adarśana) and elimination of upādhi.
• Tarka (hypothetical reasoning) removes doubt: if smoke could exist without fire, smoke would not need fire to arise, which contradicts experience.
• Sāmānya-lakṣaṇa pratyakṣa: perceiving smokeness and fireness, the universals, gives knowledge of all smoke and fire, so vyāpti is grasped without perceiving every case. Gaṅgeśa gives a precise definition of vyāpti.

Inference as independent pramāṇa: it gives knowledge of what is not perceived (fire on the hill), through a distinct instrument, the knowledge of vyāpti and of the mark in the subject (parāmarśa). It is therefore not reducible to perception.

Critical discussion: Nyāya’s reply on self-refutation is strong. But the problem of induction remains: repeated observation does not prove universality, and sāmānya-lakṣaṇa perception is open to dispute. Later Cārvākas (Purandara) themselves accepted inference about this world while rejecting inference to the unseen (God, rebirth).