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OTHER FORMS AND MEANS OF KNOWLEDGE.
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is cognised; hence its cognition should be sought for from somewhere else ; -and for that also, it would be necessary to have recourse to another Inferential Indicative and so forth. This same process being urged against each of the three theories,-there would be an endless Infinite Regress.
From all this, the right conclusion would be that the apprehension of one thing brings about the Cognition of the non-existence of other things. When one has to deny the time and place of things, the negation (denial) is made of the perceptible things themselves, as it is these latter that stand on the same footing as the thing that has been apprehended; it being impossible to deny anything else. If sameness were denied, then all would be denied, -as has been seen before ; because all things become included under what is not—that thing—which is apprehended',-according to the principle that what is not the same as one thing is another thing'(1684-1686)
Question:
TEXT (1687).
“WHAT IS THAT one THING ON THE COGNITION WHEREOF THE SKY IS
COGNISED AS moon-less? HOW TOO IS THE absence OF
ALL SOUND COGNISED ANYWHERE?"-(1687)
COMMENTARY.
[Says the Opponent]—“When a man notices the absence of the Moon in the Akasha, there is no apprehension of any one thing, by virtue of which it could be said that from the apprehension of that one thing follows the apprehension of the non-existence of other things ; specially as there is no such real thing as Ākāsha which could be apprehended as devoid of the Moon. Even that Ākäsha which others have postulated as something real is beyond the reach of the senses.--Then again, when at a certain place the absence of sound is noticed from the apprehension of what one thing does that follow ?-It cannot be urged that it follows from the apprehension of the spot on the ground concerned ; because the ground is not equal to the Sound as regards its perceptibility,--because the ground is visible, while the Sound is audible ; and what are meant to be mutually related in the present context are things that stand on the same footing regarding their perceptibility. This is clear from the assertion that one thing is other than the other when both are related to the same cognition and yet are not depend. ent upon one another',-Nor can the cognition in question be said to proceed from the apprehension of Time; because there is no such category as 'Time' apart from the other categories, whose apprehension could be there. The Time that is accepted by the other party is also something beyond the senses”. -(1687)
The answer to the above is as follows: