mology of world illusion. Kumarila, however, works via the path of negation:
errors arise by the imposition of non-presences (memories) upon the present.
Since Kumarila takes particular negations as real entities, there continues to
be perception of the real, even in the case of error. These arguments rework
Buddhist concepts in the interest of defending realism against Buddhist world
illusion, and are part of the matrix from which Advaita emerged.^53 Prab-
hakara’s emphasis on consciousness as the self-valid starting point of all
knowledge is reminiscent of Yogacara, and it points the way to a foundational
use of the cogito by Shankara and Mandana to establish the reality of the
universal atman.
As a pluralist realist, Prabhakara derives knowledge of the “I” from the
perception of objects. Three things are known simultaneously and inseparably
in each cognition: the subject who knows the object, the object known, and
the knowledge of the object. The “I,” however, cannot be known as an object
for itself, because a subject is never an object. Kumarila debates this point,
arguing that the three entities are not revealed simultaneously, and that knowl-
edge of the “I” emerges by inference. Shankara made these points of disagree-
ment into a launching pad for his own radical turn from pluralist realism into
transcendental non-dualism.^54
As a powerful Advaita school emerged in the next generation, Mimamsa
established its hyper-realism on the opposing front. But the contending versions
of Mimamsa could not all survive in the available attention space. The slot
went to the followers of Kumarila Bhatta, while Prabhakara’s branch soon
faded, his own texts were lost, and Mandana, the third contender, converted
from Mimamsa to Advaita. Prabhakara’s weakness was that he was both less
extreme in his realism than Kumarila (especially on pluralism and negation),
and in some respects too close to Buddhism. The decisive split may well have
been over a matter which set the boundaries of Hindu orthodoxy against
heterodox religions: the caste system (Halbfass, 1991: 367–378). Kumarila
argued that castes are eternally fixed because they are real universals (some-
thing like ‘natural kinds’). Performance of the sacrifices is the only way to
accumulate merits, but only a Brahman male may perform them. Moreover,
one cannot lose one’s identity of being a Brahman, no matter what unethical
acts one may perform—an explicit rejection of Buddhist criticism of the caste
system and the Buddhist concept of merits as arising from ethical actions. On
this issue Prabhakara was more liberal. He disagreed with Kumarila, holding
that there is only the universal of humanness, shared by both Brahman and
untouchable, men as well as women. Prabhakara’s compromise left him vul-
nerable to subsequent neglect as Hinduism became definitively victorious over
Buddhism, and Kumarila’s followers captured the slot in the attention space
anchored in their uncompromising extremism.
246 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths