t of perception) is the

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[Footnote 1: There is a difference of opinion about the meaning of the word
"svalak@sa@na" of Dharmakirtti between ray esteemed friend Professor
Stcherbatsky of Petrograd and myself. He maintains that Dharmakirtti held
that the content of the presentative element at the moment of perception
was almost totally empty. Thus he writes to me, "According to your
interpretation svalak@sa@na mean,--the object (or idea with Vijnanavadin)
_from which everything past and everything future has been eliminated_,
this I do not deny at all. But I maintain that if everything past and
future has been taken away, what remains? _The present_ and the present
is a _k@sa@na_ i.e. nothing.... The reverse of k@sa@na is a k@sa@nasamtana
or simply sa@mtana and in every sa@mtana there is a synthesis ekibhava
of moments past and future, produced by the intellect (buddhi = nis'caya =
kalpana = adhyavasaya)...There is in the perception of a jug _something_
(a k@sa@na of sense knowledge) which we must distinguish from the _idea_ of
a jug (which is always a sa@mtana, always vikalpita), and if you take
the idea away in a strict unconditional sense, no knowledge remains:
k@sanasya jnanena prapayitumas'akyatvat. This is absolutely the Kantian
teaching about _Synthesis of Apprehension_. Accordingly pratyak@sa is a
_transcendental_ source of knowledge, because practically speaking it
gives no knowledge at all. This _prama@na_ is _asatkalpa_. Kant says
that without the elements of intuition (= sense-knowledge = pratyak@sa =
kalpanapo@dha) our cognitions would be empty and without the elements of
intellect (kalpana = buddhi = synthesis = ekibhava) they would be blind.
Empirically both are always combined. This is exactly the theory of
Dharmakirtti. He is a Vijnanavadi as I understand, because he maintains
the cognizability of ideas (vijnana) alone, but the reality is an
incognizable foundation of our knowledge; he admits, it is bahya, it is
artha, it is arthakriyak@sa@na = svalak@sa@na; that is the reason for
which he sometimes is called Sautrantika and this school is sometimes
called Sautranta-vijnanavada, as opposed to the Vijnanavada of As'vagho@sa
and Aryasanga, which had no elaborate theory of cognition. If the jug as
it exists in our representation were the svalak@sa@na and paramarthasat,
what would remain of Vijnanavada? But there is the perception of the jug