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## The Sutra Kritanga Sutra
Here, inference should be used in this way: The senses are not endowed with attainment - the conscious power to control the object of attainment is not of the senses, because they are derived from substances that do not have the quality of consciousness. Whatever is derived from unconscious, non-conscious substances, is all endowed with unconscious qualities, like a pot, a cloth, etc. Thus, the absence or non-existence of consciousness in the five great elements is proven.
The commentator then presents another reason to prove this: Each of the senses has a physical form derived from the elements. According to the Charvaka doctrine, no other seer-knower is considered. The senses themselves are the seers. They individually perceive their respective objects. An object that can be known or perceived by one sense cannot be known by another sense besides that one. In such a situation, I have known the five objects - I have experienced the objects of the five senses. This collective, combined, or unitary knowledge is not obtained or experienced, but it is actually experienced in life. From this, it appears that there must be a seer or knower different from the senses. Consciousness is its quality, not of the five elements.
Again, this topic is clarified here by another method of inference: The five elements do not have the quality of consciousness in their aggregate, because the senses derived from those elements have the capacity to perceive their respective objects - they perceive one object related to each of them, but they cannot perceive the collective, combined knowledge of all five. If one sense could know what another sense has perceived or known, then if Devadatta knew a certain object or idea, Yajnadutta would also know it, but this is not visible, because another man cannot know an object known and experienced by one man.
Thus, a doubt arises: Independently, none of the five elements have the quality of consciousness. If this is accepted, then this fault is proven, but when the five great elements are mutually relative, then due to their mutual combination or union, the quality of consciousness arises in a new form, just as the ingredients of wine, like yeast and water, etc., do not have this power or intoxication, but when they combine, the intoxicating power, which was absent in each individually, arises. If this happens, where is the scope or possibility for the above-mentioned fault?
The answer lies in the 'ch' sound used in the above verse of the commentary: You said that consciousness arises from the mutual, relative combination of the five elements. We present this solution through this alternative: The combination by which the five great elements produce the quality of consciousness is either different or separate from those combiners, the mutually combining great elements, or it is not different or separate. If you consider that combination to be different from them, then it will become a sixth element in addition to the five, but according to your view, there is no sixth element called combination in addition to the five elements - it is unproven. You only accept direct perception as evidence, and that direct perception evidence does not reveal combination or prove its existence. If you accept the acceptance of combination through another evidence, then the existence of living beings can also be accepted through that other evidence.
If you consider combination to be not different or separate from the five elements, then it is still debatable whether each element is conscious or unconscious. If each element is considered to be conscious by all five elements, then one sense is proven, i.e., one sense alone, due to its consciousness, perceives different objects.