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momentarism. Thus for them everything whatsoever - be it an external thing or a mental state - comes into existence this moment, perishes the next moment. Then speaking the language of cause-and-effect they declared that a thing as it exists at the first moment causes this thing as it exists at the second moment; to this was added that the former while causing the latter is assisted by the available set of accessories, so that in case certain types of accessories are available to the former the latter might be very much dissimilar from the former. For example, normally a jar this moment will cause a jar the next moment but in case the former is in the company of a stick hitting against it there will be caused not a jar but the potsherds the next moment. Hence it was emphasised that the destruction of a thing requires no cause; for all things must perish automatically while what are called the cases of the destruction of a thing are in fact the cases of a thing causing something very much dissimilar from itself. Obviously, all this description was considered applicable to whatever is real; and so it was emphasised that to be real means to perish as soon as born, a statement equivalent to saying that to be real means to cause something. Hence the equation : 'to be real' = 'to be causally efficient' = 'to be momentary'. As for a person's mental world, it was maintained that it is of the form of an uninterrupted series of momentary cognitive states just as an external thing is of the form of an uninterrupted series of momentary physical states, a position that entailed the somewhat odd corollary that a person undertakes some sort of cognitive activity all the time. Then in a broad sense distinction was made between cognition on the one hand and a mental state of the type of pleasure, pain etc. on the other but it was added that a cognition and the associated pleasure, pain etc. occur together - an understanding on the basis of which it too was given out that. pleasure, pain etc. are somehow of the nature of cognition. Lastly, it was emphasised that within a cognition-series the outgoing state imparts an appropriate 'impression to the incoming one so that at any stage it becomes possible for the person concerned to 'coordinate' a present cognition with any past one. Now this entire Buddhist doctrine of momentarism with the doctrine of no-soul as a corollary was opposed tooth and nail by the whole run of Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṁsakas whose tradition Jayanta faithfully follows. It should be useful to form some ideas
