It is not out of place to mention that on the evidence of Prabhakara we find that the category of vis’e@sa admitted by the Ka@nada school is not accepted as a separate category by the Mima@msa on the ground that the differentiation of eternal things from one another, for which the category of vis’e@sa is admitted, may very well be effected on the basis of the ordinary qualities of these things.  The quality of p@rthaktva or specific differences in atoms, as inferred by the difference of things they constitute, can very well serve the purposes of vis’e@sa.

The nature of knowledge.

All knowledge involves the knower, the known object, and the knowledge at the same identical moment.  All knowledge whether perceptual, inferential or of any other kind must necessarily reveal the self or the knower directly.  Thus as in all knowledge the self is directly and immediately perceived, all knowledge may be regarded as perception from the point of view of self.  The division

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of the prama@nas as pratyak@sa (perception), anumana (inference), etc. is from the point of view of the objects of knowledge with reference to the varying modes in which they are brought within the purview of knowledge.  The self itself however has no illumining or revealing powers, for then even in deep sleep we could have knowledge, for the self is present even then, as is proved by the remembrance of dreams.  It is knowledge (sa@mvid) that reveals by its very appearance both the self, the knower, and the objects.  It is generally argued against the self-illuminative character of knowledge that all cognitions are of the forms of the objects they are said to reveal; and if they have the same form we may rather say that they have the same identical reality too.  The Mima@msa answer to these objections is this, that if the cognition and the cognized were not different from one another, they could not have been felt as such, and we could not have felt that it is by cognition that we apprehend the cognized objects.  The cognition (sa@mvedana) of a person simply means that such a special kind of quality (dharma) has been manifested in the self by virtue of which his active operation with reference to a certain object is favoured or determined, and the object of cognition is that with reference to which the active operation of the self has been induced.  Cognitions are not indeed absolutely formless, for they have the cognitional character by which things are illumined and manifested.  Cognition has no other character than this, that it illumines and reveals objects.  The things only are believed to have forms and only such forms as knowledge reveal to us about them.  Even the dream cognition is with reference to objects that were perceived previously, and of which the impressions were left in the mind and were aroused by the unseen agency (ad@r@s@ta).  Dream cognition is thus only a kind of remembrance of that which was previously experienced.  Only such of the impressions of cognized objects are roused in dreams as can beget just that amount of pleasurable or painful experience, in accordance with the operation of ad@r@s@ta, as the person deserves to have in accordance with his previous merit or demerit.