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1444
TATTVASANGRAHA: CHAPTER XXVI.
cannot be reliable, as we have shown above. Nor is there any Vedic assertion found to the effect that all men are non-omniscient.-Nor can the mere fact of something not being mentioned in the Veda establish the non-existence of that thing; because all things are not meant to be spoken of in the scriptures. Otherwise, there would be non-existence of the marriage of your mother and such things, as these are not mentioned in the Veda.-Nor again can it be right to deduce that a certain thing is not mentioned in the Vede at all from the fact of its not being mentioned in a certain text. Because there being many 'Rescensional Texts of the Voda, it is always probable that the thing may be mentioned somewhere in them.--And we are going to show later on that a certain Vedic Text does speak of the Omniscient Person.
The non-existence of the Omniscient Person cannot be proved by the argument that He forms the objective of the Means of Cognition called * Negation' (Non-apprehension). Because if this 'Negation' as a means of Cognition is described as consisting in the absolute negation of Cognition,then, it cannot form either the Cognition, or the Means of Cognition, of any. thing at all; and hence the Omniscient Person could not be envisaged by it ; as it is a non-entity; and hence cannot be a Means of Cognition (or Cognition).
If, on the other hand, 'Negation, is held to be of the nature of Relative Negation-standing for the negation of the entity-in the shape of the Means of Cognition, even so, as it would be of the nature of the negation of the Means of Cognition, it could not be reliable at all. One who is a nonBrāhmana cannot be a Brahmana.
The following might be urged—"Negation, as a Means of Cognition, is not described by us as consisting in the exclusion of all Means of Cognition ; it is described as a particular form of Cognition, only different from the five other Means of Cognition".
If that is so, then it behoves you to explain in what form it appears.
"It appears in this form-Inasmuch as the Omniscient Person is not cognisable by any one of the five Means of Cognition, He does not exist."
If it is in this form, then it is not a 'Means (or form) of valid Cognition'; as it is Inconclusive, False. Because the inapplicability of the five Means of Cognition cannot set aside the entity in the shape of the Omniscient Person, which is not invariably concomitant with the said inapplicability; on the strength of which the said Cognition (that the Omniscient Person does not exist) could be regarded as true.
Thus it is established that there is no Proof that sets aside the possibility of the existence of the Omniscient Person.-(3268-3269)
The following might be urged—“That same Non-apprehension which you have described as a form of Inference, will be the proof against the existence of the Omniscient Person; what need have we to seek for another proof?”
It is true that Non-apprehension is a proof, a Means of Cognition. But the following has to be borne in mind, in this connection :- When you put forward Non-apprehension' as proving the non-existence of the Omniscient Person, do you mean the absence of your own apprehension? Or the
