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ideational concept and power that such knowledge has of showing the means which being followed the thing can be got (yena k@rtena artha@h prapito bhavati).  Prama@na then is the similarity of the knowledge with the object by which it is generated, by which we assure ourselves that this is our knowledge of the object as it is perceived, and are thus led to attain it by practical experience.  Yet this later stage is prama@naphala and not prama@na which consists merely in the vision of the thing (devoid of other associations), and which determines the attitude of the perceiver towards the perceived object.  The prama@na therefore only refers to the newly-acquired knowledge (anadhigatadhigant@r) as this is of use to the perceiver in determining his relations with the objective world.  This account of perception leaves out the real epistemological question as to how the knowledge is generated by the external world, or what it is in itself.  It only looks to the correctness or faithfulness of the perception to the object and its value for us in the practical realization of our ends.  The question of the relation of the external world with knowledge as determining the latter is regarded as unimportant.

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The Yogacaras or idealistic Buddhists take their cue from the above-mentioned Sautrantika Buddhists, and say that since we can come into touch with knowledge and knowledge alone, what is the use of admitting an external world of objects as the data of sensation determining our knowledge?  You say that sensations are copies of the external world, but why should you say that they copy, and not that they alone exist?  We never come into touch with objects in themselves; these can only be grasped by us simultaneously with knowledge of them, they must therefore be the same as knowledge (sahopalambhaniyamat abhedo nilataddhiyo@h); for it is in and through knowledge that external objects can appear to us, and without knowledge we are not in touch with the so-called external objects.  So it is knowledge which is self-apparent in itself, that projects itself in such a manner as to appear as referring to other external objects.  We all acknowledge that in dreams there are no external objects, but even there we have knowledge.  The question why then if there are no external objects, there should be so much diversity in the forms of knowledge, is not better solved by the assumption of an external world; for in such an assumption, the external objects have to be admitted as possessing the infinitely diverse powers of diversely affecting and determining our knowledge; that being so, it may rather be said that in the beginningless series of flowing knowledge, preceding knowledge-moments by virtue of their inherent specific qualities determine the succeeding knowledge-moments.  Thus knowledge alone exists; the projection of an external word is an illusion of knowledge brought about by beginningless potencies of desire (vasana)