Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya by Haribhadra Sūri
Chapter 5 – A Line of Demarcation between the first four and last four Yogadṛṣṭis [61 of 121]
Chapter 5.4 – The Fallacious argument (kutarka) [17 of 32]
Nature of a fallacious argument [9 of 10]
(4) With the help of a fallacious argument, which is chiefly based on illustration, everything can be said to be present everywhere [2 of 3]
The yogācāra Buddhists are vijñānavādins they believe that only knowledge exists in the world. Nothing is real other than knowledge. All knowledge whatsoever is devoid of an object. The discussion to prove this predicate is as follows.:
An opponent: If you do not accept the existence of anything except knowledge, then how would you justify the existence of direct perception of all objects in this world?
A vijñānavādin: The direct perception of an object is a mere illusion. In reality only knowledge exists. The existence of an object, which is perceived directly, is illusory.
An opponent: If it is the case then how does it become possible to have a direct perception of an object that does not exist in reality.
A vijñānavādin: It is possible. To strengthen the argument following examples are presented.
- Though there is only one moon in the sky, a diseased person views it as two.
- Though one sees horses, elephants etc. in dream, they do not exist really in dream.
We have seen that in these illustrations those objects are perceived which do not exist in reality. Similarly, even though nothing exists except knowledge, one has cognition of various things other than knowledge due to illusion.
This is how a vijñānavādin, on the base of illustrations establishes his predicate even though it is not compatible with what is evident in the world. From this we may conclude that with the help of illustrations even truths can be proved as untruth. Hence a fallacious argument, chiefly based on illustrations, serves no purpose.
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