that state
nirva@na, in which by the knowledge of the general characteristics
of all things (transitoriness and misery) they are not attached to
things and cease to make erroneous judgments [Footnote ref 1].

Thus we see that there is no cause (in the sense of ground)
of all these phenomena as other heretics maintain. When it is
said that the world is maya or illusion, what is meant to be
emphasized is this, that there is no cause, no ground. The phenomena
that seem to originate, stay, and be destroyed are mere
constructions of tainted imagination, and the tathata or thatness
is nothing but the turning away of this constructive activity or
nature of the imagination (_vikalpa_) tainted with the associations
of beginningless root desires (_vasana_) [Footnote ref 2]. The tathata has
no separate reality from illusion, but it is illusion itself when the
course of the construction of illusion has ceased. It is therefore
also spoken of as that which is cut off or detached from the mind
(_cittavimukta_), for here there is no construction of imagination
(_sarvakalpanavirahitam_) [Footnote ref 3].

Sautrantika Theory of Perception.

Dharmottara (847 A.D.), a commentator of Dharmakirtti's [Footnote ref 4]
(about 635 A.D.) _Nyayabindu_, a Sautrantika logical and epistemological
work, describes right knowledge (_samyagjnana_) as an
invariable antecedent to the accomplishment of all that a man

__________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: _Lankavatarasutra_, p. 100.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 109.]

[Footnote 3: This account of the Vijnanavada school is collected mainly
from _Lankavatarasutra_, as no other authentic work of the Vijnanavada
school is available. Hindu accounts and criticisms of this school may be
had in such books as Kumarila's _S'loka varttika_ or S'a@nkara's bhasya,
II. ii, etc. Asak@nga's _Mahayanasutralamkara_ deals more with the duties
concerning the career of a saint (_Bodhisattva_) than with the metaphysics
of the system.]

[Footnote 4: Dharmakirtti calls himself an adherent of Vijnanavada in his
_Santanantarasiddhi_, a treatise on solipsism, but his _Nyayabindu_ seems
rightly to have been considered by the author of _Nyayabindu@tika@tippani_
(p. 19) as being written from the Sautrantika point of view.]

152

desires to have (_samyagjnanapurvika sarvapuru@sarthasiddhi_) [Footnote
ref 1]. When on proceeding, in accordance with the presentation of any
knowledge, w