Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 55

46
THE KARMA-MĪMĀMSA
perceived, but in truth the idea is formless and known by inference, while the object is endowed with form and is an object of sense perception. Or, again, the reality of an external world is shown by the fact that we have the idea of a mat only when threads form its material cause; if otherwise, then a man might form the idea of a iar despite the use of threads in the composition of an object; put more broadly, our ideas are not the free result of our mental activity; they are imposed upon us as regards their content by external reality.
The argument as a whole thus falls into two parts, the first dealing with the contention that ideas have no foundation (nirālambana), and the second with the view that external reality is void (sünya). Both these con. tentions are the tenets of the Nihilism of Buddhism, and there is no real ground for doubt that the arguments of the Vrttıkāra are directed against this contention. Kumārila," however, or some predecessor, has interpreted the passage otherwise, treating the first part of the argument as directed against the Vijñänavāda of Vasubandhu and Asanga, which admitted the reality of ideas, while denying that of the outer world, and the second part he treats as a refutation of the Sünyavāda of the Madhyamika school of Nāgārjuna, Precisely the same fate has overtaken the corresponding discussions of the Sūnyavāda in the Nyāya and Vedānta Sutros; Vätsyāyana still interpreted the former (IV, 2, 25-33) in its true sense, but Vācaspati Mısra reads into part of it an attack on the Vijñānavāda, in the case of the Vedanta Samkara turns the whole passage (II, 2, 28-32) into an attack on that school, while Rămânuja treats it as refuting both Buddhist doctrines. The causes for these vagaries of interpretation are obvious, the Sūnyavāda in its refutation of external reality used the arguments which the Vijñānavāda later employed,
1 Slokatārttika, pp. 217-67, 268-345. Prakaranapancika, pp 141 ff, 171 (a fragment only); cf. Nyāyakanikā, pp. 253 ff, Mänameyodaya, pp. 119-22; Nyāyamoñjari, pp. 536 f (Vijõänavāda), 548 ff (Sūnyavāda).
Mahāyānaşütrālamkara, ed, and trans. S. Lévi, Paris, 1907-11 , Sarvadarsanasamgrahe, ch. I; Sarvasiddhārtasongrona, ch, IV (11), Saddarśanasantuocaya, pp. 40, 41, 47.
Jacobi, J.2.0.5., XXXI, 1 ff.