Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 4)

The Bauddhas who maintain that universal destruction is going on constantly, assume that 'whatever forms an object of knowledge and is different from the triad is produced (samskrita) and momentary.' To the triad there mentioned they give the names 'cessation dependent on a sublative act of the mind,' 'cessation not dependent on such an act,' and 'space.' This triad they hold to be non-substantial, of a merely negative character (abhâvamâtra), devoid of all positive characteristics. By 'cessation dependent on a sublative act of the mind,' we have to understand such destruction of entities as is preceded by an act of thought397; by 'cessation not so dependent' is meant destruction of the opposite kind398; by 'space' is meant absence in general of something covering (or occupying space). Out of these three non-existences 'space' will be refuted later on (Sûtra 24), the two other ones are refuted in the present Sûtra.