The manner in which knowledge originates is one of the most favourite topics of discussion in Indian philosophy. We have already seen that Sa@mkhya-Yoga explained it by supposing that the buddhi (place of consciousness) assumed the form of the object of perception, and that the buddhi so transformed was then intelligized by the reflection of the pure intelligence or puru@sa. The Jains regarded the origin of any knowledge as being due to a withdrawal of a veil of karma which was covering the all-intelligence of the self.
Nyaya-Vais`e@sika regarded all effects as being due to the assemblage of certain collocations which unconditionally, invariably, and immediately preceded these effects. That collocation (_samagri_) which produced knowledge involved certain non-intelligent as well as intelligent elements and through their conjoint action uncontradicted and determinate knowledge was produced, and this collocation is thus called prama@na or the determining cause of the origin of knowledge [Footnote ref 489]. None of the separate elements composingthe causal collocation can be called the primary cause; it is only their joint collocation that can be said to determine the effect, for sometimes the absence of a single element composing the causal collocation is sufficient to stop the production of the effect. Of course the collocation or combination is not an entity separated from the collocated or combined things. But in any case it is the preceding collocations that combine to produce the effect jointly. These involve not only intellectual elements (e.g. indeterminate cognition as qualification (vis'e@sa@na) in determinate perceptions, the knowledge of li@nga in inference, the seeing of similar things in upamana, the hearing of sound in s'abda) but also the assemblage of such physical things (e.g. proximity of the object of perception, capacity of the sense, light, etc.), which are all indispensable for the origin of knowledge. The cognitive and physical elements all co-operate in the same plane, combine together and produce further determinate knowledge. It is this capacity of the collocations that is called prama@na.
Nyaya argues that in the Sa@mkhya view knowledge originates by the transcendent influence of puru@sa on a particular state of buddhi; this is quite unintelligible, for knowledge does not belong to buddhi as it is non-intelligent, though it contains within it the content and the form of the concept or the percept (knowledge). The puru@sa to whom the knowledge belongs, however, neither knows, nor feels, neither conceives nor perceives, as it always remains in its own transcendental purity. If the transcendental contact of the puru@sa with buddhi is but a mere semblance or appearance or illusion, then the Sa@mkhya has to admit that there is no real knowledge according to them. All knowledge is false. And since all knowledge is false, the Sa@mkhyists have precious little wherewith to explain the origin of right knowledge.
There are again some Buddhists who advocate the doctrine that simultaneously with the generation of an object there is the knowledge corresponding to it, and that corresponding to the rise of any knowledge there is the rise of the object of it. Neither is the knowledge generated by the object nor the object by the knowledge; but there is a sort of simultaneous parallelism. It is evident that this view does not explain why knowledge should express or manifest its object. If knowledge and the object are both but corresponding points in a parallel series, whence comes this correspondence? Why should knowledge illuminate the object. The doctrine of the Vijnana vadins, that it is knowledge alone that shows itself both as knowledge and as its object, is also irrational, for how can knowledge divide itself as subject and object in such a manner that knowledge as object should require the knowledge as subject to illuminate it? If this be the case we might again expect that knowledge as knowledge should also require another knowledge to manifest it and this another, and so on _ad infinitum_. Again if prama@na be defined as _prapa@na_ (capacity of being realized) then also it would not hold, for all things being momentary according to the Buddhists, the thing known cannot be realized, so there would be nothing which could be called prama@na. These views moreover do not explain the origin of knowledge. Knowledge is thus to be regarded as an effect like any other effect, and its origin or production occurs in the same way as any other effect, namely by the joint collocation of causes intellectual and physical [Footnote ref 490]. There is no transcendent element involved in the production of knowledge, but it is a production on the same plane as that in which many physical phenomena are produced [Footnote ref 491].