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INDIAN LOGIC
Thus the opponent is told that in that case a false cognition should be to the effect 'I am such and such a not-x' - not to the effect “This thing is such and such a not-x.'94 To this is added that this third theory becomes one with the first if expressed in the form 'a false cognition cognizes a mental state as an external object', it becomes one with the second if expressed in the form 'a false cognition cognizes a mental state as having become an external object though in fact a mental state never becomes an external object';95 the second contingency cannot be avoided by pleading that a mental state exists after all, for what matters is whether it exists as an external object.96
Thus after criticizing the three current theories which somehow or other grant the possibility of a false cognition (and having shown that the three involve each other) the Prabhākarite elaborates his own theory which grants no such possibility.97 Thus on the Prabhākarite's showing, in an alleged case of false cognition there really takes place a fresh cognition and a memory but owing to the circumstance that this memory is not recognized as a memory there is not apprehended the distinction obtaining between this memory and this fresh cognition, with the result that the whole operation assumes the form of two fresh cognitions not distinguished from one another. So he begins by pointing out that his thesis on 'non-apprehension is somehow or other accepted by the advocates of the other three theories as well.98 For example, in an alleged case of false cognition there is involved according to the third theory a .non-apprehension of the distinction that obtains between a mental state and an external object. according to the second theory a non-apprehension of the distinction that obtains between an utterly non-existent thing and an existent thing, according to the first theory a memory that is not apprehended as a memory; certainly, the first theory must admit that the cognition of x as a not-x is impossible unless this not-x is recalled while at the same time it is not realized that this not-x is something just recalled, not something freshly cognized." The opponent pleads : “In a false cognition there might be no conscious realization that a not-x is something just recalled but here there is a conscious realization that a before-lying object is freshly cognized. Why then say that here there is not apprehended the distinction obtaining between a fresh cognition and a memory ?"100 The Prabhākarite replies : “Here there is no elear realization that a before-lying object is freshly cognized, for in that case x would have been cognized as x inasmuch as the before-lying
