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1314
TATTVASANGRAHA: CHAPTER XXV.
Even if it existed, as all entities are without desire and effort, they could not have any activity. Nor is there any effect to be produced by the Cogni. tion, towards which the Cognition could operate.
"But there is to be produced by it the effect in the shape of making its object cognised".
Not so; making cognised its own object' means exactly the same that is meant by the term Cognition': so your assertion would mean that the Cognition produces itself; indeed a most excellent assertion !
"The effect of the Cognition would be the bringing about of the certainty that the Cognition is right and valid."
That is not possible ; because in the case of some Cognitions, there is no certainty; and in some the contrary is found to be the case.
What has been said has also shown that the present Proposition of the Mimämsaka is contrary to Perception and other means of Cognition. For instance, if there is non-apprehension of what fulfills the conditions of perceptibility, and there is apprehension of something else-it follows that what is non-existent cannot have any activity. The same is also proved by Inference,-being, as it is, formless, like the sky-lotus'.
The phrase "which you also regard serves to point out that what has been asserted by the Mimāmsaka involves self-contradiction on his part,-(2922)
This game self-contradiction is pointed out in the following:
TEXTS (2923-2924).
THE OPERATION OF CAUSES HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOUND TO BE SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM THE birth OF THE EFFECTS ; IN ORDER TO PRECLUDE THIS FROM THE CASE OF COGNITION (Pramāna), THE TERM BIRTH' (janma ') HAS BEEN INTRODUCED (BY JAIMINI IN HIS Sūtra 1. 1. 4] -THE IDEA BEING THAT THE COGNITION DOES NOT CONTINUE TO EXIST FOR EVEN A SINGLE MOMENT, AND YET IT IS NOT BORN AS INVALID ON ACCOUNT OF WHICH IT COULD OPERATE ONLY LATER ON TOWARDS THE APPREHENDING OF THE OBJECT, IN THE MANNER OF THE SENSE-ORGANS.[Shlokavartika-SENSE-PERCEPTION, 54-55).
(2923-2924)
COMMENTARY.
In Sūtra 1. 1. 4, Jaimini has propounded the definition of Sense-perception as consisting in the birth of the man's apprehension following from the contact of the sense-organs with an existing object'; and the above four lines have been put forward by Kumãrila in justification of the use of the term "janma (Birth) in this definition: the sense being that the term
birth' has been used in order to point out that the Cognition is valid as soon as it is born.
