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XXI] The Pramāṇas according to Mādhava Mukunda 427 leading to the flashing of knowledge. What is meant by the phrase “knowledge has an object” is that knowledge takes a particular form and illuminates it. The objects remain as they are, hut they are manifested through their association with knowledge and remain unmanifested without it. In the case of internal perception the operation of the senses is not required, and so pleasure and pain are directly perceived by the mind. In self-consciousness or the perception of the self, the self being itself self-luminous, the mental directions to the self remove the state of contraction and reveal the nature of the self. So God can be realized through His grace and the removal of obstruction through the meditative condition of the mind!
In inference the knowledge of the existence of the hetu (reason) in the minor (pakşa) having a concomitance (vyāpti) with the probandum (sādhya), otherwise called parāmaría (vahni-vyāpyadhūmavān ayam evam-rūpaḥ), is regarded as the inferential process (anumāna) and from it comes the inference (e.g. “the hill is fiery'). Two kinds of inference, i.e. for the conviction of one's own self (svārthānumāna) and for convincing others (parārthānumāna), are admitted here; and in the latter case only three propositions (the thesis, pratijñā, the reason, hetu, and the instance, udāharana) are regarded as necessary. Three kinds of inference are admitted, namely kevalā-nvayi (argument from only positive instances, where negative instances are not available), kevala-vyatireki (argument from purely negative instances, where positive instances are not available), and anvaya-vyatireki (argument from both sets of positive and negative instances). In addition to the well-known concomitance (vyāpti) arising from the above three ways, scriptural assertions are also regarded as cases of concomitance. Thus there is a scriptural passage to the following effect: The self is indestructible and it is never divested of its essential qualities (avināšī vā are ātma an-ucchitti-dharmā), and this is regarded as a vyāpti or concomitance, from which one may infer the indestructibility of the soul like the Brahman. There are no other specially interesting features in the Nimbārka doctrine of inference.
Knowledge of similarity is regarded as being due to a separate pramāņa called upamāna. Such a comprehension of similarity (sādrsya) may be due to perception or through a scriptural assertion 1 Para-pakşa-giri-vajra, pp. 203-206.
2 Ibid. p. 210.
