ABSTRACT
The passage-which probably, in view of what seems to be relatively advanced techniques, belongs to younger textual layers of the Sayings of the Seers, perhaps even as late as between the 1st century BCE / 1st century CE and 2nd century CE-contains direct references to some epistemological elements. The first of these is hetu, which eventually came to denote ‘logical reason’ in later Indian epistemology. The use of hetu in the passage may be a direct echo of the idea of justification in the form of ‘a cognitive tool’ or ‘the cause of valid cognition’ (hetu), which was primarily developed in the tradition of Ânvîkšikî (1st century BCE-1st century CE),412 and was soon adopted by Nyâya and other schools under the name of cognitive criterion (pramâòa).413 This concept eventually entered Jaina epistemology after the 2nd century CE under the indisputable
influence of the schools of Ânvîkšikî and Nyâya, and came to be represented in the Þhâòaôga-sutta and the Viyâha-pannatti414 as an exemplification of what I call Model VIII of cognitive criteria (pramâòa), developed after 300 CE.415
