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DHARMAPALA'S COMMENTARY
59
function to perform, and therefore is to be non-existent; [e.g. ether). So also is the case with the mind.
[Though] the object (alambana) may be [proved by] the perceptive knowledge, yet, since it consists in the nature of being grasped ® (grahyasvabhāva), it is absolutely unreal. So we consider it right to reject the nature of its being object (alambanata) and thereby the nature of its being basis (asryayata). However, the force (s'akti) which constitutes the sense faculty and which acts simultaneously [with consciousness] will imagin it to exist.
An external thing, etc. . It is perceived that there is some object other than this [consciousness]. This [consciousness] makes known [to us] something opposite [to itself]. That something is called object since it is (as it were] capable of being grasped by an entity other than itself.
How could one say that something (e.g. perception) depends upon mere collocation (samagri) ? For, the collocation is not properly a substance. [If one argues that we should accept that principle in accordance with the Tathāgata's teaching in respect of the two-fold Truth, failing which] the Tathāgata's Truth will be far amiss from correctly understood. This argument goes by itself against the reasonings preceding and
9 Cf. Nyāyavārtika, p. 521 where some anumāha is referred to thus : a fanlagfafiti faqat: piecara agarraga i atc94a1at p. 656: अत्र विज्ञानवादी स्वपक्षे प्रमाणमाह-न चित्त० ।
9 This seems to be a reference to the Madhyamika's standpoint. Cf. ATASIT asia, etc., in the Bhavasařkrānti sūtra, $ 11.
