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160 A Review of the Philosophy of Madhva [CH. (sva-gata) and is, like space, the vehicle (ādhāra) of everything else, and it is also the common cause of the production of all objects.
Darkness (andhakāra) is also considered as a separate substance and not as mere negation of light. A new conception of pratibimba ("reflection") is introduced to denote the jīvas, who cannot have any existence apart from the existence of God and who cannot behave in any way independent of His will, and, being conscious entities, having will and feeling, are essentially similar to him; though reflections, they are not destructible like ordinary reflections in mirrors, but are eternal (pratibimbas tu bimbāvinābhūtasat-sadrśaḥ)"
The system of Madhva admits the qualities (guna) more or less in the same way as the Nyāya-Vaiseșika does; the points of difference are hardly ever of any philosophical importance. Those which deserve to be mentioned will be referred to in the succeeding sections.
Pramāņas (ways of valid knowledge). Pramāņa is defined as that which makes an object of knowledge cognizable as it is in itself (yathārtham pramānam). The function of pramāna consists both in making an entity object of knowledge through the production of knowledge (jñāna-jananad vāva jñeyatāsampādakatvena), either directly (sākṣāt) or indirectly (asākṣāt)3. There are two functions in a pramāņa, viz. (1) to render an entity an object of knowledge (jñeya-vişayłkarana) and (2) to make it cognizable (jñeyatā-sampādana)So far as the function of making an entity an object of knowledge is concerned, all pramāṇas directly perform it; it is only with reference to the second function that there is the distinction between the two kinds of pramāņas, kevala and anu, such that it is only the former that performs it directly and only the latter that performs it indirectly (paramparā-krama) 4. These two functions also distinguish a pramāna from the pramātā ("subject") and the prameya (“object"), since neither the subject
i Padārtha-samgraha, 193.
? Madhva's definition of pramāna in his Pramāņa-laksana is elaborated by Jaya-tirtha in his Pramāņa-paddhati as jñeyam anatikramya vartamānam yathavasthitam eva jñeyam yad vişayīkaroti nānyathā tat pramānam (p. 8).
3 Jaya-tirtha-vijaya-tippani on the Pramāna-paddhati by Janårdana.
• Ibid. Also kevalam visayasya jñeyatvam jñānam upādhitayā karanam tu tajjanakatayā sampādayanti ity etāvantam višeşam āśritya kevalânu-pramāna-bhedah samarthitaḥ. Nyaya-sudhā, 11. 1. 2 (p. 249).
