es and
attempts proceeding in accordance with our knowledge. People
only declare their knowledge invalid when proceeding practically
in accordance with it they are disappointed. The perception of
a mirage is called invalid when proceeding in accordance with
our perception we do not find anything that can serve the purposes
of water (e.g. drinking, bathing). The validity or truth of
knowledge is thus the attainment by practical experience of the
object and the fulfilment of all our purposes from it (_arthakriyajnana_
or _phalajnana_) just as perception or knowledge represented
them to the perceiver. There is thus no self-validity of
knowledge (_svata@h-prama@nya_), but validity is ascertained by
_sa@mvada_ or agreement with the objective facts of experience [Footnote
ref l].

It is easy to see that this Nyaya objection is based on the
supposition that knowledge is generated by certain objective
collocations of conditions, and that knowledge so produced can

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[Footnote 1: See _Nyayamanjari_, pp. 160-173.]

374

only be tested by its agreement with objective facts. But this
theory of knowledge is merely an hypothesis; for it can never be
experienced that knowledge is the product of any collocations;
we have a perception and immediately we become aware of certain
objective things; knowledge reveals to us the facts of the
objective world and this is experienced by us always. But that
the objective world generates knowledge in us is only an hypothesis
which can hardly be demonstrated by experience. It is the supreme
prerogative of knowledge that it reveals all other things. It is not a
phenomenon like any other phenomenon of the world. When we
say that knowledge has been produced in us by the external
collocations, we just take a perverse point of view which is unwarranted
by experience; knowledge only photographs the
objective phenomena for us; but there is nothing to show that
knowledge has been generated by these phenomena. This is
only a theory which applies the ordinary conceptions of causation
to knowledge and this is evidently unwarrantable. Knowledge is
not like any other phenomena for it stands above them and
interprets or illumines them all. There can be no validity in
things, for truth applies to knowledge and knowledge alone. What
we call agreement with facts by practical experience is but the
agreement of previous knowledge with later kn