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270 Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [CH. only to the present moment. It can never lead us to the comprehension of the past. Our notion, therefore, that things existent in the past are persistent in the present is an illusion due to the operation of the subconscious root-impressions which ignore difference between the past and the present, and impose the former on the latter, as silver is imposed on conch-shell. The reply of Venkața to this is that perception demonstrates only the presence of an object in the present moment as against its absence; but it does not on that account deny its existence in the past. Just as "this” indicates the presence of an object in the present moment, the perceptual experience "that is this” demonstrates the persistence of the object in the past and in the present?. If it is urged that perception reveals its object as a present entity, then the Buddhist theory of perception as indeterminate (nirvikalpa), which cannot reveal the object as qualified by the temporal character as present, falls to the ground. If it is urged that perception reveals the existence of the object at the moment of the perceptual revelation, then also it is impossible in the Buddhist view, for the momentary object with which the sense-organ was in touch has ceased to exist by the time knowledge was produced. So, in whichever way the Buddhist may take it, he cannot prove that perception reveals an object only as present; whereas in the Rámānuja view, since the sense-contact, the object as associated with it, and the temporal element associated with them, are continuous, the mental state is also continuous and as such the perception reveals the object as that with which the sense was in contact. Even after the cessation of the sense-contact, the mental state, indicating the perception of the object with which the sense was in contact, is comprehended?
Again if it is argued that whatever is invariably produced from anything must also be produced unconditionally without awaiting any causal operation, then it must be said that when leaves and flowers grow from a plant they do so unconditionally, which is absurd. Moreover, when in a series of momentary entities one entity follows another, it must do so without awaiting any cause; then, on the one hand, since each of the preceding entities has no
1 yathā idam iti tat-kāla-sattā grhyate tathā tad idam iti kāla-draya-sattvam api pratyakşeņai'va grhitam. Sarvärtha-siddhi, p. 69.
2 asman-mate tv indriya-samprayogasya tad-višista-vastunas tad-upahita-kālāmíasya ca sthāyitvena dhi-kşanānuvrttau tad-visayatayā pratyakşo-dayāt samprayoga-nantara-kşane dhir api nirvartyate. Ibid. p. 70.
