Original
पुरःस्थितेऽपि पुंसि स्यात्कथं तव विनिश्चयः ।
नायं सर्वज्ञ इत्येवंभावेऽतीन्द्रियविद्भवान् ॥ ३५६२ ॥
आत्मासर्वज्ञतादृष्टौ शेषासर्वज्ञनिश्चये ।
बाधादृष्टेर्नचेत्सर्वधर्मनिश्चय इष्यते ।
बाधाशङ्का ननूक्तेऽपि बाधादृष्टेर्न भिद्यते ॥ ३५६४ ॥puraḥsthite’pi puṃsi syātkathaṃ tava viniścayaḥ |
nāyaṃ sarvajña ityevaṃbhāve’tīndriyavidbhavān || 3562 ||
ātmāsarvajñatādṛṣṭau śeṣāsarvajñaniścaye |
bādhādṛṣṭernacetsarvadharmaniścaya iṣyate |
bādhāśaṅkā nanūkte’pi bādhādṛṣṭerna bhidyate || 3564 ||Even if the person were standing before you, how could you have the certainty that ‘he is not omniscient’? if you had this knowledge, you would be cognisant of things beyond the senses!—If you deduce the fact of all persons being not-omniscient from seeing that you yourself are not so,—then, there would be this incongruity that (your) Brahmā and other deities would deduce the omniscience of all persons from their own omniscience.—If it be urged that—“there is conviction regarding the presence of such qualities in all men only when we do not perceive anything to the contrary”, then our answer is that in regard to the matter under consideration, the mere suspicion to the contrary has the same effect as the actual perception of that contrary.—(3562-3564)
Kamalaśīla
That is, even when the man is standing before one, one sees only his body, and if the observer is himself not-omniscient, he cannot know that the man before him is not-omniscient.
‘Bhāve’—i.e. if there were the certainty that the man is not-omniscient. If, in order to save the Reason from being ‘Inadmissible’, the conviction regarding all men being not-omniscient be taken as deduced from one’s own non-omniscience;—then there would be incongruities and the Reason would become ‘Inconclusive’,—This is what is pointed out by the words—‘If you deduce, etc. etc.’—The compound ‘ātmāsarvajñatādṛṣṭau’ is to be expounded as—‘dṛṣṭau’—from the perception—‘asarvajñatāyāḥ—of non-omniscience—‘ātmani’,—in yourself.
The following might be urged—“In the ease of the proving of the presence of a certain quality in all men, the idea is rendered impossible by the perception of the diversity of wisdom, etc. among men; hence no attempt is made to prove it; in the case of non-omniscience, however, the idea is not rendered impossible by anything; hence there could be no such incongruity as has been indicated”.
This is not right. Just as a Reason cannot prove that of which the contrary has been perceived, similarly it cannot also prove that of which the contrary is suspected; and in this respect, the suspicion of the contrary does not differ from the perception of the contrary. Consequently, there can be no proving of non-omniscience, because its contrary is open to suspicion.—(3562-3564)