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THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
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and Dharmakīrti suggests that 'exclusion from everything else' constitutes the total nature of an object while 'exclusion from a particular set of objects' constitutes but an aspect of this nature. All this is very much confusing, but is the true indicator of the somewhat odd workings of Dharmakirti's mind. Perhaps, the most odd is his contention that bare sensory experience reveals a thing's total nature whose partial aspects are alone revealed by thought, only a little less odd his contention that thought notices as belonging in common to several objects features that are exclusively negative in import. However, reading between the lines one can easily see that Dharmakirti has an almost correct understanding of the relative roles played in the knowledge-situation by bare sensory experience on the one hand and thought on the other, as also of the type of objective features - whether exclusively negative or otherwise - that thought manages to notice.
Notes 1. PV (= Pramāņavārttika, ed. Rahul Sankstyāyana), II. 194 2. Ibid., II. 195-196 3. Ibid., II. 200-202 4. Ibid., II. 208 5. Ibid., II. 212 6. Ibid., II. 213-214, 217-218 7. Ibid., II. 219 8. Ibid., II. 398 . 9. Ibid., II. 1.65-166 10. Ibid., II. 249-280 11. This is the central contention that emerges in the course of all his
defence of momentarism. For the momentary character of a mental
state is seldom 'under dispute. 12. PV, III. 166 3. The so important Svārthānumānapariccheda of the Pramāņavārttika
and the author's own commentary on it are substantially concerned
with the problem of sāmānya. 14. PV. III. 166 15. Ibid., III. 165 16. Ibid., II. 5, 50
.
