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INDIAN LOGIT
cognition is self-revelatory. In addition, he observed that valid cognition should represent the form of the object concerned (visayākāra).' Dharmakirti defines true knowledge as harmonious or nondiscrepant (avisaṁvādi) in the sense that there is no conflict between the cognition of an object and the practical activity meant to obtain it. 10 Some may point out that according to Buddhism things being momentary an object indicated (apprehe. nded) by a piece of cognition and an object attained (reached or determined) by us in the wake of this cognition could never be the same; thus there would arise the impossibility of there being a harmony between the cognitive and conative activities and consequently no knowledge would be considered to be valid. Dharmottara solves the difficulty by suggesting that while defining valid knowledge Dharmakirti has kept before his eyes the object-cantinuum and not the momentary members of this continuum. He has tackled the problem of valid cognition from the empirical or worldly viewpoint that accepts a thing as durable. Moreover, for Dharmakirti valid cognition is a new cognition, the cognition of an object not yet cognised. 12 It anight be urged that on this definition even the cognition of the universal (sāmânyavijnana) arising in the wake of the cognition of the unique particular would become valid because the former cognises an object not yet cognised by a previous cognition 13 But Dharmakirti in this connection declares that what he means is that the cognition grasping the ungrasped unique particularit is valid For, by means of valid knowledge people seek to acquire unique particulars only, because none but they lead to successful purposive activity. 15 Inasmuch as things, according to Buddhism, are momentary, two cognitions can never arise with regard to one and the same object. And so, to be consistent with the prime doctrine of momentarism Dharmakirti deems it proper to put down 'grasping-the-hitherto-ungrasped-object' as a differentiating mark of valid cognition. In the Jaina tradition Siddhasena Divākara and Āc. Samantabhadra define valid cognition by pointing out that it is its nature to reveal itself as well as its object. 16 Akalanka, although he accepts this as one of the defining characteristics of valid cognition 17 considers harmory or
