Knowledge reveals our own self as a knowing subject as well
as the objects that are known by us. We have no reason to
suppose (like the Buddhists) that all knowledge by perception of
external objects is in the first instance indefinite and indeterminate,
and that all our determinate notions of form, colour, size and other
characteristics of the thing are not directly given in our perceptual
experience, but are derived only by imagination (_utprek@sa_), and
that therefore true perceptual knowledge only certifies the validity
of the indefinite and indeterminate crude sense data (_nirvikalpa
jnana_). Experience shows that true knowledge on the one hand
reveals us as subjects or knowers, and on the other hand gives
a correct sketch of the external objects in all the diversity of
their characteristics. It is for this reason that knowledge is our
immediate and most prominent means of serving our purposes.
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[Footnote 1: _Prama@na-naya-tattvalokala@mkara,_ p. 26.]
[Footnote 2: See _Pari@sa-mukha-sutra,_ II.
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