Verse 3096

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

स्वयं तु जडरूपत्वाच्चक्षुरादिभिरिन्द्रियैः ।
गृह्यन्ते विषया नैवं तेषां ज्ञाने तु हेतुता ॥ ३०९६ ॥

svayaṃ tu jaḍarūpatvāccakṣurādibhirindriyaiḥ |
gṛhyante viṣayā naivaṃ teṣāṃ jñāne tu hetutā || 3096 ||

Being themselves ‘insentient’ the eye and other sense-organs do not apprehend things; they only serve as the cause of cognition of those things.—(3096)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

It has been argued, under Text 2911, that—“Just as objects are apprehended by the Eye and the other Sense-organs, which are themselves not cognised, so, in the same manner, are things apprehended by Cognitions, without these latter being themselves cognised, etc. etc.”.

The answer to this is as follows;—[see verse 3096 above]

Like the things themselves, the Sense-organs are insentient; hence they do not directly apprehend things; they only serve as the cause of the Cognition of those things,—by virtue of which fact it is assumed that things are apprehended by them; hence it may be that though themselves uncognised, things are ‘apprehended’ by them, in the sense that they bring about the Cognition of the things. The Cognition itself, however, does not do any such thing for the things; by virtue of which it could be said that “though itself uncognised, it apprehends things, like the Eye and other Sense-organs”.

“But the Cognition does bring about the manifestation of things.”

That cannot be right; because “manifestation” is synonymous with ‘Cognition’. As a matter of fact, all such words as ‘abhivyakti’, ‘upalabdhi’, ‘pariccitti’, ‘saṃvedana’, etc. etc. are synonymous and do not denote different things. And the Cognition cannot be its own instrument; as the operation of anything upon itself involves an incongruity; also because things produced are existent, while those not produced are non-existent. That is, when the Cognition would bring about itself, would it do so when it is itself produced? Or would it do so when it is itself not-produced? The first alternative cannot be accepted, because it would be produced as being on the same footing as itself; because when one thing does not stand on the same footing as itself, it cannot be of the same nature as this latter; if it did, there would be incongruities;—nor can it be right to bring about a nature that has been already produced; because there is no additional peculiarity introduced; and also because there would be no end to such bringing about of things.—Nor can the second alternative be accepted; simply because it does not exist; and there can be no functioning of what does not exist; because the non-existent is characterised by the absence of all capacity; so that, if it did function, it would cease to be non-existent. In fact capacity for efficient activity is what constitutes the existence of things.

Thus there is no analogy between the example cited by the other party and the case it is meant to illustrate.—(3096)