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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
38
SATYASASANA-PARIKSA
to experience and logic. The objects that we perceive are massive, permanent, and composite. We never perceive the atmic, momentary and simple objects. 1 The Buddhist philosopher cannot distniss this perception as illusory unless he succeeds in pointing out a perception which cognizes the momentary simple atom. Dharmakirti has defined perception as 'cognition which is free froin conceptual constructions and non-erroneous' (pratyakşam kalpanāpodham abhrantam). If all our perceptions are dismissed as illusory, the definition would have no scope. We do never perceive the atoms and so these also cannot be regarded as the object of such perceptions. The indeterminate perception also is not capable of cognizing the atoms. Moreover, it is devoid of the certitude which is an essential condition of the cognition being valid and non-discrepant ( avisamvādaka ). Even as a person ignorant of the nature of poison fails to determine the poison as poison by perception, so an indeterminate perception is ipso facto not capable of determining the nature of the object. Nor can the indeterminate perception determine its object by means of a deterininate cognition produced in the next moment, because the determinate cognition would require the production of another determinate cognition the its own determination, and so on ad infinitum. Moreover, it is impossible that an indeterminate perception should produce a deterininale cognition in the next moment. An ass cannot produce a horse. It a perception free from conceptual constructions could produce a determinate cognition which is conceptual, why should not the atomic real (svalakṣàņa) itself be admitted as capable of generating the deterıninate cognition directly without the intervention of the indeterminate perception. The Buddhist cannot set down the conceptual constructions to the activity of predispositions and perversities influencing the indeterminate perception in the production of the determinate cognition in the next moment. These predispositions and perversities will ever remain active and make the indeterininate perception itself vitiated and contaminated and incapable of cognizing the true nature of the object. .
The indeterminate perception thus is found incapable of establishing the reality of atoms. And the determinate cognition, being conceptual in character, is unfit to perform the function. Inference, being based on perception, is also incompetent to do the duty.
The Buddhist might contend that composite wholes are not real.
The
1
1 na hi pratyakşe sūksma-kşaņika-sādhāraṇa-rūpāḥ paramänavaḥ pratibhasante, sthūla-sthira-sädhäranäkārātmanam eva ghatādinām . pratibhāsanāt.
-SŚP, p. 21. 2 abližlāpasūnyäd . apyadhyaksād vyavasāya-kalpanāyām svalakṣaṇam kim
nädhyavasäyam janayet svayam abhilapaśünyam api.-SSP. p. 22.
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