A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.s11.4

v2.c19.s11.4

The Buddhists there are made to argue as follows: When two entities are invariably perceived simultaneously they are identical; now knowledge and its objects are perceived simultaneously; therefore the objects are identical with their percepts. Our ideas have nothing in the external world to which they correspond, and their existence during dreams, when the sense-organs are universally agreed to be inoperative, shows that for the appearance of ideas the operation of the sense-organs, indispensable for establishing connection with the so-called external world, is unnecessary. If it is asked how, if there are no external objects, can the diversity of percepts be explained, the answer is that such diversity may be due to the force of *vāsanās* or the special capacity of the particular moment associated with the cognition². If the so-called external objects are said to possess different special capacities which would account for the diversity of percepts, the successive moments of the mental order may also be considered as possessing special distinctive capacities which would account for the diversity of percepts generated by those cognition moments. In dreams it is these diverse cognition moments which produce diversity of percepts.