alid to the cognizor at the time that he has the cognition as any
real judgment could be. If subsequent experience rejects it, that
does not matter, for it is admitted in Mima@msa that when later
experience finds out the defects of any perception it can invalidate
the original perception which was self-valid at the time of its
production [Footnote Ref. 1]. It is easy to see that the Mima@msa had to
adopt this view of illusion to maintain the doctrine that all cognition
at the moment of its production is valid. The akhyati theory

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[Footnote 1: See _Prakara@napancika, S'astradipika_, and _S'lokavarttika_,
sutra 2.]

387

tries to establish the view that the illusion is not due to any
positive wrong knowledge, but to a mere negative factor of non-apprehension
due to certain weakness of mind. So it is that
though illusion is the result, yet the cognition so far as it is cognition,
is made up of two elements, the present perception and
memory, both of which are true so far as they are individually
present to us, and the cognition itself has all the characteristics of
any other valid knowledge, for the mark of the validity of a cognition
is its power to prompt us to action. In doubtful cognitions also,
as in the case "Is this a post or a man?" what is actually perceived
is some tall object and thus far it is valid too. But when this
perception gives rise to two different kinds of remembrance (of
the pillar and the man), doubt comes in. So the element of apprehension
involved in doubtful cognitions should be regarded
as self-valid as any other cognition.

Inference.

S'abara says that when a certain fixed or permanent relation
has been known to exist between two things, we can have the
idea of one thing when the other one is perceived, and this kind
of knowledge is called inference. Kumarila on the basis of this
tries to show that inference is only possible when we notice
that in a large number of cases two things (e.g. smoke and fire)
subsist together in a third thing (e.g. kitchen, etc.) in some independent
relation, i.e. when their coexistence does not depend
upon any other eliminable condition or factor. It is also necessary
that the two things (smoke and fire) coexisting in a third
thing should be so experienced that all cases of the existence of
one thing should also be cases involving the existence of the
other, but the cases of the existenc