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1406
TATTVASANGRAHA: CHAPTER XXVI.
Nor can the view be accepted that the apprehension of all things comes about through Mental Perception,-(the second alternative put forward in the commentary on 3157-3158, on p. 1405, line 23.-Because, though Mental Peroeption may envisage all things, yet it has no independent operation of its own towards the apprehension of things; if it had, then there would be no deaf or blind persons. It is then dependent upon something else ; and as a matter of fact it is found that it envisages only those things that have been apprehended by Perception through the Senses ; so that there can be no apprehension by Mental Perception of anything that has not been envisaged by Sense perception, such things, for instance, as are remote, small, hidden, and the mind of another person and so forth(3159)
The following might be urged-Through Practice and other causes, it is found that the powers of intelligence and other faculties vary with each
and from this is deduced the possibility of a Person in whom these powers have reached the highest stage of perfection (and such a person would be omniscient).
The answer to this is as follows
TEXTS (3160-3161).
THOSE PERSONS WHO HAVE BEEN FOUND TO BE SUPERIOR TO OTHERS ARE SO ONLY ON ACCOUNT OF INTELLIGENCE, MEMORY AND STRENGTH, ---WHICH VARY SLIGHTLY WITH VARYING PERSONS, AND NOT ON ACCOUNT OF THE CAPACITY TO PERCEIVE SUPER-SENSUOUS THINGS-EVEN THE INTELLIGENT MAN WHO IS CAPABLE OF PERCEIVING SUBTLE THINGS IS SUPERIOR TO OTHER PERSONS, WITHOUT GOING BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS OF HIS
OWN KIND."—(3160-3161)
COMMENTARY.
As a matter of fact, however much he has practised, no one has been found to become capable of perceiving things beyond the reach of the senses. For instance, a man, even though exceptionally intelligent, and capable of apprehending things that can be apprehended only by keen intelligence, is never found to transcend the limitations of his own species,-i.e. the human weak. noss, in the shape of the absence of abnormal vision and the like, and he is nover found to be endowed with such abnormal vision, etc. Consequently there is no justification for any such assertion as the following which has been loudly proclaimed by Buddhists- He sees with abnormal eyes, pure and transcending beyond the limitations of man, beings entering into excellent states and even inferior states, etc. eto.'.-(3160-3161)
