it has conditioned. Moreover, knowledge is a mental affair and
how can it certify the objective truth of its representation? In
other words, how can my perception "a blue thing" guarantee
that what is subjectively perceived as blue is really so objectively
as well? After my perception of anything as blue we do not
have any such perception that what I have perceived as blue
is really so. So this so-called self-validity of knowledge cannot
be testified or justified by any perception. We can only be certain
that knowledge has been produced by the perceptual act, but
there is nothing in this knowledge or its revelation of its object
from which we can infer that the perception is also objectively
valid or true. If the production of any knowledge should certify
its validity then there would be no invalidity, no illusory knowledge,
and following our perception of even a mirage we should
never come to grief. But we are disappointed often in our perceptions,
and this proves that when we practically follow the
directions of our perception we are undecided as to its validity,
which can only be ascertained by the correspondence of the perception
with what we find later on in practical experience. Again,
every piece of knowledge is the result of certain causal collocations,
and as such depends upon them for its production, and
hence cannot be said to rise without depending on anything else.
It is meaningless to speak of the validity of knowledge, for
validity always refers to objective realization of our desires and
attempts proceeding in accordance with our knowledge. People
only declare their knowledge invalid when proceeding practically
in accordance with it they are disappointed. The perception of
a mirage is called invalid when proceeding in accordance with
our perception we do not find anything that can serve the purposes
of water (e.g. drinking, bathing). The validity or truth of
knowledge is thus the attainment by practical experience of the
object and the fulfilment of all our purposes from it (_arthakriyajnana_
or _phalajnana_) just as perception or knowledge represented
them to the perceiver. There is thus no self-validity of
knowledge (_svata@h-prama@nya_), but validity is ascertained by
_sa@mvada_ or agreement with the objective facts of experience [Footnote
ref l].