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that case the object would be wholly unknowable and thus there would be no ground for asserting its existence If, on the other hand, the object is excactly like the representation, it must like the representation, be within knowledge because representation is only an instance of knowledge As Bosanquet has remarked, once the object is separated from knowledge, it is impossible to bring the two together and there is no way to escape the closed walls of knowledge or a solipsistic position 11 The Vijñānavādins went further and attacked the very possibility of an independent material reality They sought to accomplish this through a dialectical resolution of the concept of atoms or wholes into contradiction 12 While common sense asserts the reality of obects because they are perceived, the Vijñānavādins assert the unreality of objects because of their appearance (drśyatva) just as in dreams As for the commonness and regularity of the world of experience, the Vijñāpavadins retort that while illusions and hallucinations last, they also appear to be common and regular In fact, beliefs and prejudices can have a content common to many persons without signifying independent reality and the instinctive or transcendental elements of thought can provide regularity to the objects of experience without their being external to knowledge What is more, it is the idea of relating knowledge to an external subject conceived on the analogy of objects, that produces solipsism The true idealistic position avoids solipsism by distinguishing knowledge from arbitrary fancy and by placing the subject as much within knowledge as the object Again, the regularity of the world is more an ideal of knowledge than a patent fact of experience The Madhymikas went a step further and said that since the object and subject do not exist, knowledge itself must become unreal
Such Buddhistic views served as the standing foil which the realistic systems sought to counter Here the Jaina point of view is in conformity with the criticism which Nyāya and Mīmāmsā have levelled against the Buddhistic position 13 However, the Jaina theory of reality being dialectical, it escapes much of that criticism which the Buddhists in their turn levelled against Nyāya
