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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE between cognition and its object is intelligible when each of them bas certain conditions and characters that are wanting in the other, i e. when there are distinctive differences between them. Hence we cannot accept the view of the new realists' that the content of knowledge, that which lies in or before the mind when knowledge takes place, 18 numerically identical with the thing known, and is not in a class by itself. This means that things, when consciousness is had of them, become themselves contents of consciousness and the same things figure both in the so-called external world and in the manifold which introspection reveals Thus objects literally and actually enter into the mind, and not subjective facts like cognitions or ideas.' On this view, the distinction between knowledge and its object or between truth and error becomes meaningless.
The Bauddha idealists, namely, the Yogācāras give another definition of pramāņa. According to them, consciousness (vijñāna) as the principle of self-manifestation is the source of all knowledge (pramāna) 2 Having no determinations in itself, consciousness comes to have certain determinate contents in order to manifest itself and thereby gives us knowledge of a world of objects. A pramāna is that which manifests objects, but manifestation as a conscious process can belong only to that which is intelligent and conscious. The sense organs being unintelligent and unconscious cannot have the power of conscious manifestation. Hence the intellect itself is to be recognised as pramāņa by virtue of its intelligent nature and capacity of manifestation. It has neither any permanent subject as its locus nor any objects that are external to and independent of it. It is the intellect that accounts for both the subjective and objective aspects of experience. With its beginningless tendencies conscious
1 Cf. The New Realism pp 34-35
Vijñá nasyaivādākārasyātmanåtmaprakābanasamarthyam, NVT, P 20. I NVTP., p. 155.
