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INDIAN LOGIC
Thus he asks the Kumārilite : "When through perception a blue-patch is cognized as a blue-patch what it is that cognizes that the cognition concerned is a valid cognition ?"36 On Jayanta's showing this instrument must be either a perception or an inference;37 he first argues as to why it cannot be a perception, then as to way it cannot be an inference. Both arguments are formulated in terms of certain technicalities of the Kumārilite notion of pramāṇa and pramānaphala but their sum and substance is simple as also telling. For if the Kumārilite were to maintain that all cognition automatically, grasps itself as a valid cognition then he must at least grant that all cognition automatically grasps itself, a point actually conceded by the Buddhist and the Prabhākarite and hotly contested by the Naiyāyika 'and the Kumārilite. Nay, while the Naiyāyika granted the possibility. that a cognition can be perceived the Kumārilite did not do even thạt and insisted that a cognition can be cognized only by way of inference with the concerned object-cognizedness acting as probans. Keeping all this in mind Jayanta urges against the Kumārilite the following points:
(1) A cognition cannot be perceived at all.
(2) The concerned object-cognizedness can be cognized neither through sense-born perception nor through a manas-born one, and even if it is cognized through the latter that will not be a case of automatic self-cognition.
(3) Even a manas-born perception of the concerned objectcognizedness cannot guarantee that the cognition concerned is valid. 38
(4) There can be pointed out no probans to infer the concerned object-cognizedness in such a manner that the cognition concerned is guaranteed to be valid.
(5) The concerned object-cognizedness can at the most act as probans for inferring the bare existence of the cognition concerned but never for inferring that this cognition is vaild."
The Kumārilite pays no serious thought to these points and glibly remarks: “Experience reveals that a cognition of blue is a cognition of blue, this being all that is meant when this cognition is declared. to be valid."'40 Jayanta retorts : "On this logic the cognition of nacre as silver too should be declared to be valid, for this cognition is after all a cognition of silver.”+1 The Kumārilite pleads : “This cognition is doubtless invalid because a subsequently arisen cognition contra
