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VIII J Philosophy in the Nyiiya siltras 297 knowledge. There are no hard and fast limits that those which are instruments of knowledge should always be treated as mere instruments, for they themselves may be objects of right know- ledge. The means of right knowledge (pramarya) do not require other sets of means for revealing them, for they like the light of a lamp in revealing the objects of right knowledge reveal them- selves as well. Coming to the question of the correctness of the definition of perception, it is held that the definition includes the contact of the soul with the mind 1. Then it is said that though we per- ceive only parts of things, yet since there is a whole, the per- ception of the part will naturally refer to the whole. Since we can pull and draw things wholes exist, and the whole is not merely the parts collected together, for were it so one could say that we 'perceived the ultimate parts or the atoms 2 . Some objectors hold that since there may be a plurality of causes it is wrong to infer particular causes from particular effects. To this the Nyaya answer is that there is always such a difference in the specific nature of each effect that if properly observed each par- ticular effect will lead us to a correct inference of its own par- ticular cause 3 . In refuting those who object to the existence of time on the ground of relativity, it is said that if the present time did not exist, then no perception of it would have been possible. The past and future also exist, for otherwise we should not have perceived things as being done in the past or as going to be done in the future. The validity of analogy (upamiilla) as a means of knowledge and the validity of the Vedas is then proved. The four pramaryas of perception, inference, analogy, and scripture I Here the sidras, II. i. 20-28, are probably later interpolations to answer criticisms, not against the Nyaya doctrine of perception, but against the wording of the definition of perception as given in the Nyiiya sZf,tm, II. i. 4. 2 This is a refutation of the doctrines of the Buddhists, who rejected the e1:istence of wholes (avayavi). On this subject a later Buddhist monograph by Pal)ita Asoka (9th century A.D.), Avayavinil'iikarala in Six Buddhist Nytiya Tracts, may be re- ferred to. 3 PZf,1'"ZJodaka vifi f!am khalu varfodllkan fighrataram srotasii bahutaraphenaPhala- par1Jak{ls!hiidivahanaiicopalabhallltilza pur1}atvena, nadyii upari vnto deva ityanu- minoti nodakabrddhillltit1.ela. Viitsyiiyana bhdfya, II. I. 38. The inference that there has been rain up the river is not made merely from seeing the rise of water, but from the rainwater augmenting the previous water of the river and carrying with its current large quantities of foam, fruits, leaves, wood, etc. These characteristics, associated with the rise of water, mark it as a special kind of rise of water, which can only be due to the happening of rain up the river.