Sarvadarshanasangraha 2.70

2.70

An external object of cognition is simply untenable, because the conceptual alternatives are impossible. Would an object grasped by cognition be produced or unproduced? Not the first, because what has been produced does not endure. Nor the second, because what is unproduced does not exist. Now, if you think that the past object alone is grasped by cognition because it produces that [cognition], that too is childish talk: because it contradicts the appearance of presentness, and because sense faculties and the like, as producers of cognition, would also unacceptably become objects of cognition. Moreover, is the object of cognition of the form of an atom or of the form of a composite whole? Not the latter, because it is refuted by the alternatives of [residing in] the whole or in parts, and so forth. Not the former, because it is beyond the senses, and because simultaneous conjunction with a group of six is a defeating argument, as has been said: