Syadvada Manjari

Author(s): Mallishenacharya, F W Thomas
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 76

XII. Kumărila's theory of knowledge
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Or, if it is said, 'The outstandingness (prākațya) of the object is otherwise unaccountable, if the cognition should not be; so that the observation thereof is through practical consequence'?), - No! That also, being not cognized as an indication (jñapaka)), cannot function as an indication. If the cognition thereof is through another practical consequence, then, because of the resulting fault of the mutual dependence among the regressus ad infinitum, defeat is as before. Therefore, since the cognition shines out in regard to itself, just as in regard to the object, there is self-consciousness.
"Surely, if an experiencing (anubhūti) is experiencable (anubhavya), like a pot, etc., it follows that it is not an experiencing; and the working out is as follows: cognition, though in the form of experience (anubhava), is not an experiencing, because it is experiencable, like a pot; and cognition is agreed by Your Worship to be experiencable, because self-conceived'. - Say not so, since, like the knower as a knower, the experiencing is experienced as experiencing. Nor is the experiencability of experiencing a fault; since it is experiencing with reference to the object, and it is experiencable with reference to itself; there being no contradiction, as in the case of the sonhood and fatherhood of a single person, with reference to his own father and son.
And from inference also self-consciousness is established. As thus: only as self-illuminating does cognition illuminate the object, because it is illuminant; like a lamp. If it is said, 'If self-consciousness is something to be illuminated), its being illuminant is unestablished', - No! Because by way of repelling non-cognition 10 its being illuminant fits. (95)
If it is said, 'Surely, the eye, etc., though illuminants, do not illuminate themselves, so that the Middle Term, i. e. 'being an illuminant', is equivocali), - Not so! We have not here equivoque because of eye, etc.; since only in the form of the inner senses, defined as receptivity and attention 12), are these illuminants; and the inner senses have the form of self-consciousness: so that there is no divergence. Therefore consciousness is self-illuminate, because of the presentation of an object : what is not self-illuminate, is not presentation of an object: like a pot.
So the self-conceivedness of cognition being established by perception and inference, the Bhatta supposition of perception in three stages results in trouble. (They say:) "On contact with an existent thing there is cognition, defined as produced by the organ and awareness'; then outstandingness of the object; therefrom practical consequence, and therethrough observation of the activity.) stimulating cognition"13). But the Yogas say14): 'Cognition is to be illuminated by something other than itself; because, if other than God's cognition, it is a subject of knowledge (knowable), like a pot; for a cognition, when (already) originated, is discerned only by a mental perception arising next inherent in the same self, not by itself (i. e. the original perception). And there is not in this way regressus ad infinitum, because the
) Arthāpatti, which applies when a fact is otherwise inexplicable, the stock example being 'Fat Devadatta does not eat in the daytime: ergo he eats at night'. Here the outstandingness of the object proves that it has been cognized. 9) It is not present in mind at all, and so does not operate.
Sc. to be revealed by the cognition as part of its content. 10) 1. e., as a positive something which conceivably might not have been there, it makes an assertion of itself.
11) Sc. subject to exception, since the mentioned illuminants do not illuminate, i. e. reveal, themselves.
12) Receptivity' (labdhi) and attention (upayoga). These are discussed in Umāsvāti's Tattvārthādhigamasūtra, II. 18-9, the former being the general faculty of sense-awareness of objects and the latter the actual attention and response (M. L.). See also note VIII 43).
15) The first part of the quotation is from Purva-mimamsa-sūtra I. i. 4, which is correctly quoted in Hemacandra's Pramāka-mimamsa, I. i. 30 and several times in the Tattva-samgraha.
9 This Yoga, = Nyaya-Vaišeşika. Here again the argument (pp. 76-77) follows Ratnākara on Pramana-naya-m., I. 17 (see Dhruva, notes, p. 340, who also cites, pp. 341-2, parallels from Hemacandra's Pramāna-mimāmsā, I. i. 2).