ies continues to be the same, as in the case of one person,
say Devadatta, the phenomena of memory, recognition, etc. can
happen in the succeeding moments, for these are evidently illusory
cognitions, so far as they refer to the permanence of the objects
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believed to have been perceived before, for things or knowledge-moments,
whatever they may be, are destroyed the next
moment after their birth. There is no permanent entity as perceiver
or knower, but the knowledge-moments are at once the
knowledge, the knower and the known. This thoroughgoing
idealism brushes off all references to an objective field of experience,
interprets the verdict of knowledge as involving a knower
and the known as mere illusory appearance, and considers the
flow of knowledge as a self-determining series in successive
objective forms as the only truth. The Hindu schools of thought,
Nyaya, Sa@mkhya, and the Mima@msa, accept the duality of soul
and matter, and attempt to explain the relation between the
two. With the Hindu writers it was not the practical utility of
knowledge that was the only important thing, but the nature of
knowledge and the manner in which it came into being were also
enquired after and considered important.
Prama@na is defined by Nyaya as the collocation of instruments
by which unerring and indubitable knowledge comes into being.
The collocation of instruments which brings about definite knowledge
consists partly of consciousness (_bodha_) and partly of material
factors (_bodhabodhasvabhava_). Thus in perception the
proper contact of the visual sense with the object (e.g. jug) first
brings about a non-intelligent, non-apprehensible indeterminate
consciousness (nirvikalpa) as the jugness (gha@tatva) and this later
on combining with the remaining other collocations of sense-contact
etc. produces the determinate consciousness: this is a jug.
The existence of this indeterminate state of consciousness as a
factor in bringing about the determinate consciousness, cannot of
course be perceived, but its existence can be inferred from the
fact that if the perceiver were not already in possession of the
qualifying factor (_vis'e@sanajnana_ as jugness) he could not have
comprehended the qualified object (_vis'i@s@tabuddhi_} the jug (i.e.
the object which possesses jugness). In inference (_anuma@na_)
knowledge of the li@nga takes part, and in upamana the sight
of similarity with other material conglomerations. In the case
of
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