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105
Refutation of Idealism
cognition itself. Kumārila retorts that the memory of a past cognition takes place if this cognition was cognized in the past, it does not take place if it was not cognized; his point is that what is always possible is the memory of a thing-as-cognized-in-the-past and not the memory of a past cognition, while a cognition is cognized-immediately or afterwards when the 'implication' of the cognition of the concerned thing-as-cognized is pondered over. This question-answer is reported by Kumarila in an extremely summary form in v. 118 and later on he delves deep into it in vv. 187-98. But for the rest he is just now preoccupied with an argument which was advanced not in connection with the self-cognition vs. not-selfcognition controvercy but in connection with the formed-cognition vs. formless-cognition controvercy. Thus the Buddhist had argued that if a cognition is not object-formed but formless then it is inconceivable how 'cognition of X should differ from 'cognition of Y. This core-argument Kumārila refutes in vv. 115-17. He says that a cognition cannot be described except through referring to its object so that 'cognition of X' differs from 'cognition of Y even if both are identical qua cognition. And he pointedly adds: 'Just as on your theory one cognition differs from another even if all cognitions are a 'formed some thing, so also on our theory one cognition differs from another even if all cognitions are a formless something.' The Buddhist might score a debating point by arguing that two formed' cognitions can well differ from one another as their forms' differ but that two formless' cognitions can differ in no way whatsoever but this will be a futile argument and the fact remains that it is a mere manner of speaking when cognition of X is called X-formed cognition. In any case, we have yet to see how the present discussion is relevant for Kumärila's immediate purpose. Thus the Buddhist had. argued that if cognition is formless' then one cognition cannot differ from another; to take concrete examples, in that case there should be no difference between 'cogni. tion of X', 'cognition of cognition-of-X', 'cognition of cognition-of--cognition-of-X'; etc. On the Buddhist's showing, in this series the constituent elements of the object increase by one unit while in each case the additional unit is 'cognition-so that if a cognition is object-formed the members of this series must differ from one another as their objects differ from one another. In essence all this is reported by Kumārila in vv. 110-14 but we have yet to see how all this is relevant for his immediate purpose. So we must further learn that according to the Buddhist a cognition is not only object--formed but also subject-formed; thus in 'cognition of X' the subject-form (also called own-form) is 'cognition of X', in 'cognition of cognition-of-X it is 'cognition of cognition-of-X', and and so on and so forth Kumārila speaks as if the Buddhist is hare trying to prove that a cognition has got a subject--form-this on the ground that in the series in question the constituent elements of the object increase by one unit while in each case the additional unit is 'cognition'. That is to say, he speaks as if the Buddhist is here arguing that in this series the object cannot have ag
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