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LIBERATION AND ITS MEANS ....
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similarity, proximity etc. all which is impossible in the case of a word and what it stands for.49 The third sub-form is criticised as follows : "It is inconceivable as to how a thing can be said to be a transformation of the word concerned. For it cannot be said that a word turns into the thing concerned as milk turns into curd, or that what a word stands for is something illusory, or that a word is illusorily mistaken for the thing concerned, or that a word undertakes to create the whole world.”50 As can be seen, the doctrine of word-monism was a piece of amateur philosophising on the part of certain authors who were expert in the science of grammar but no expert in philosophy.
(i) Vijñāna-monism of the Buddh Unlike Sabda-monism and unlike even Brahman-monism Vijñānamonism (tolerably translatable as idealism) of the Buddhist was an extremely well-established doctrine. As a matter of fact, whenever the great Nyāya and Mimāṁsā philosophers would attack illusionism they would have in mind Vijnāna-monism (or the allied Buddhist doctrine of Sūnya-monism). So much importance attaches to Jayanta's present refutation of Vijñāna-monism, a refutation which (like the earlier refutation of Sabda-monism) is much indebted to Kumārila. Jayanta first presents the idealist's case and then criticises it.
The idealist begins by arguing that in all cognition there appears one and only one form which must belong either to the cognition concerned or to the object concerned but that since a cognition must be posited in any case and must have a form in any case the idea that there also exists an object by the side of a cognition is unwarranted as well as untenable. Then it is argued that a cognition being of the form of an illuminating agent must be cognised along with the object illuminated but that since the idea of a cognition being cognised by another cognition leads to an infinite regress a cognition must be self-cognitive;52 to this is added that a cognition must be cognised because one often recognises that such and such an object is a cognised one, a recognition impossible unless the cognition concerned was cognised at the time of cognising this object. Here again it is repeated that a cognition has to be cognised as bearing one and only one form, a circumstance that renders it untenable that an object be posited by the side of the cognition .concerned;54 to this is added that a cognition must bear a form
