and nirvâna is that in which all root desires (_vâsanâ_) manifesting themselves in knowledge are destroyed and the mind with knowledge and perceptions, making false creations, ceases to work. This cannot be called death, for it will not have any rebirth and it cannot be called destruction, for only compounded things (_sa@msk@rta_) suffer destruction, so that it is different from either death or destruction. This nirvâna is different from that of the s'râvakas and the pratyekabuddhas for they are satisfied to call that state nirvâ@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 mâyâ 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 tathatâ 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 (_vâsanâ_) [Footnote ref 2]. The tathatâ 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]. Sautrântika Theory of Perception. Dharmottara (847 A.D.), a commentator of Dharmakîrtti's [Footnote ref 4] (about 635 A.D.) _Nyâyabindu_, a Sautrantika logical and epistemological work, describes right knowledge (_samyagjñâna_) as an invariable antecedent to the accomplishment of all that a man __________________________________________________________________ [Footnote 1: _Lankâvatarasûtra_, p. 100.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._ p. 109.] [Footnote 3: This account of the Vijñanavada school is collected mainly from _Lankâvatârasûtra_, as no other authentic work of the Vijñânavâda school is available. Hindu accounts and criticisms of this school may be had in such books as Kumarila's _S'loka vârttika_ or S'a@nkara's bhasya, II. ii, etc. Asak@nga's _Mahâyânasûtralamkâra_ deals more with the duties concerning the career of a saint (_Bodhisattva_) than with the metaphysics of the system.] [Footnote 4: Dharmakîrtti calls himself an adherent of Vijñanavâda in his _Santânântarasiddhi_, a treatise on solipsism, but his _Nyâyabindu_ seems rightly to have been considered by the author of _Nyâyabindu@tîkâ@tippani_ (p. 19) as being written from the Sautrântika point of view.] 152