Verse 2016

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

प्रकाशकत्वं बाह्योऽर्थे शक्त्यभावात्तु नात्मनि ।
शक्तिश्च सर्वभावानां नैवं पर्यनुयुज्यते ॥ २०१६ ॥

prakāśakatvaṃ bāhyo'rthe śaktyabhāvāttu nātmani |
śaktiśca sarvabhāvānāṃ naivaṃ paryanuyujyate || 2016 ||

“The illuminativeness of the cognition operates upon the external object, and not upon itself, for want of the necessary potency (capacity).—[Ślokavārtika-śūnyavadā, 187].—And the potency of things cannot be complained of.”—(2016)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

The following might be urged (against Kumārila):—‘How is it that, abandoning its own self, which is more intimate to itself, the Cognition illumines only the external Object?’

The answer to this by Kumārila is as follows:—[see verse 2016 above]

Question:—‘Why should the Cognition not have the potency to illuminate itself?’

Answer:—The potency of things cannot be complained of’; as has been thus declared—‘It is fire alone that burns, not Ākāśa,—who is to be complained against for this?’—(2016)

The answer to the above arguments of Kumārila is as follows:—[see verse 2017 next]