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IVI. The Buddhist theory of cognition
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is not a cause. Hence he says: 'not simultaneous, etc.'. A relation of fruit and cause between cognition and object, that is a relation of effect and cause as simultaneous, does not suit, since an object-moment accompanying the cognition is not the originator of the cognition; because relation of effect and cause between simultaneous existents is not logical. Or say, an earlier object-moment may be originator of the cognition. That is not so, since he says (in verse XVI): 'when the cause, etc.'. When the cause, in the form of the object, that which causes the cognition, has lapsed, has perished, without residue, because of momentariness, there would not be, on the part of the fruit, the effect in the form of cognition, 'a being', a realization arising of the cognition without root, because the begetter, the object-moment, has gone, would not take place. And, is just the begetter is apprehended, it follows that the senseorgans also should be apprehendible; because they also are begetters of the cognition. Nor is the object's causality of the cognition evidenced by concomitance and divergence; since in a mirage, etc., there is origination of the cognition of water even in the absence of water; because otherwise activity in regard to it (water) would not be possible. If it is said, 'cog. nition of it is illusory'; surely the consideration of illusory and non-illusory should be made by you when you become stationary; for the present admit, for a while, also cognition sprung from a non-object. If it is said, “By concomitance the object's causality of cognition is actually evidenced", - No! For concomitance, defined as existence when I exists, is not by itself occasion for certitude of the relation of cause and fruit; but rather divergence also, defined as non-existence when rexists; and, by the stated argument, this (non-existence) is not a fact. And in the case of apprehension of past and future objects on the part of Yogins, how is the object the occassioning cause, since both are non-existent, because of the text
"Things broken up are not cause; in the future (thing) there is no mass. Things annihilated do not abide, like a mustard seed on the top of a wheel-spoke" 23).
(136) And in case of being (merely) occasioning cause, there is ruin to being past and future, since existence is by way of practical efficacy. Nor does an illuminator illuminate only if it owes its being to the thing to be illuminated, since a lamp, etc., though not originated from pot, etc., illuminates them. And, if we adopt apprehendedness of begetter only, there follows a loss of authoritativeness on the part of memory, etc., which are Demonstrants; because that is not begotten by the object. Nor is memory not a Demonstrant 24); for it is the life-breath of inference as Demonstrant; because that is preceded by recollection of the connection of Major and Middle terms.
Also, if only the begetter is apprehendible, then how is self-consciousness an apprehended ? For that has an apprehended own-form. Nor is that (own-form) begotten by that (self-consciousness), because of contradiction in action on oneself 25). Therefore ?), since between object and cognition arising from their proper apparatus, as between pot and lamp, there can be relation of thing illuminated and illuminator, the object is not merely) occasioning cause of the cognition.
'Surely then, if the cognition is not begotten by the object, how is there correlation of particular definite action ? For that is justified by the origination from x and having the form
23) Source untraced.
*) In Indian philosophy generally memory is due to a trace (samskära, 'engram) of prior experience, and therefore not a source (pramāna) of knowledge.
25) This whole passage, as far as 'no other cause of apprehension' (p. 106), is taken from Hemacandra's Pramūna-mimamsā, I. i. 26.
28) This point in connection with cognition was envisaged by Dharmottara in his commentary on Nyaya-bindu, I. 21: see Stcherbatsky, op. cit., pp. 41-2.
