Verse 2081

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

नाभिमुख्येन तद्दृष्टेः स्वमुखादेस्तथेक्षणम् ।
प्रमाणदेशभेदादिदृष्टेश्चान्यपदार्थवत् ॥ २०८१ ॥

nābhimukhyena taddṛṣṭeḥ svamukhādestathekṣaṇam |
pramāṇadeśabhedādidṛṣṭeścānyapadārthavat || 2081 ||

It is not his own face that one sees in the mirror,—because it is seen in front of one’s self, and because what is seen is different in size, position, etc. (from one’s face),—like any other object.—(2081)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

Another party urges the fact of the Corroborative Instance (‘Reflection’) being devoid of the Probandum:—[see verse 2080 above]

It is not his own face that one sees in the mirror,—because the face seen there stands before one’s self;—also because what is seen has a position, size, complexion and other details different from the face.—‘Like any other object’;—i.e. like such things as sound and the like.

What is meant is as follows;—If the Cognition were the Apprehender of the face, then it should have apprehended it exactly as the face itself actually stands; because it cannot be right for the Apprehender of one form to apprehend a thing of another form. If this were possible, then there would be incongruities. As a matter of fact, when a man facing the South looks at the mirror, what he perceives in the mirror is the face facing the North; similarly, if the mirror is a small one, the face that he sees in the reflection is smaller than his own face; and it is also perceived as touching the mirror’s surface and lying far beneath it. In reality however, the mirror’s surface is not of that size, nor is it really in contact with the real face.—Similarly when a man is standing on the bank of a lake of clear water, and looks at

the water-surface, he perceives the reflections of the trees standing on the brink of the water, with their tops pointing downwards; and yet they are not really in that condition.—From all this we conclude that the Cognition of the Reflection does not apprehend the man’s own face,—because what it envisages is something different from the face,—like the Cognition of sound.—(2081)