A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 by Surendranath Dasgupta (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

pure existence or being, as it has no concrete form which may be perceived. When we speak of a thing as sat, we do not mean that it is possessed of any such class-characters as sattâ (being); what we mean is simply that the individual has its specific existence or svarûpasattâ.

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Thus the Nyâya view of perception as taking only the thing in its pure being apart from qualities, etc, (sanmâtra-vi@sayam pratyak@sa@m) is made untenable by Prabhâkara, as according to him the thing is perceived direct with all its qualities. According to Kumârila however jâti is not something different from the individuals comprehended by it and it is directly perceived. Kumârila's view of jâti is thus similar to that held by Sâ@mkhya, namely that when we look at an individual from one point of view (jâti as identical with the individual), it is the individual that lays its stress upon our consciousness and the notion of jâti becomes latent, but when we look at it from another point of view (the individual as identical with jâti) it is the jâti which presents itself to consciousness, and the aspect as individual becomes latent. The apprehension as jâti or as individual is thus only a matter of different points of view or angles of vision from which we look at a thing. Quite in harmony with the conception of jâti, Kumârila holds that the relation of inherence is not anything which is distinct from the things themselves in which it is supposed to exist, but only a particular aspect or phase of the things themselves (S'lokavârttika, Pratyak@sasûtra, 149, 150, abhedât samavâyo'stu svarûpam dharmadharmi@no@h), Kumârila agrees with Prabhâkara that jâti is perceived by the senses (tatraikabuddhinirgrâhyâ jâtirindriyagocarâ).

It is not out of place to mention that on the evidence of Prabhâkara we find that the category of vis'e@sa admitted by the Ka@nâda school is not accepted as a separate category by the Mîmâ@msâ on the ground that the differentiation of eternal things from one another, for which the category of vis'e@sa is admitted, may very well be effected on the basis of the ordinary qualities of these things. The quality of p@rthaktva or specific differences in atoms, as inferred by the difference of things they constitute, can very well serve the purposes of vis'e@sa.

The nature of knowledge.

All knowledge involves the knower, the known object, and the knowledge at the same identical moment. All knowledge whether perceptual, inferential or of any other kind must necessarily reveal the self or the knower directly. Thus as in all knowledge the self is directly and immediately perceived, all knowledge may be regarded as perception from the point of view of self. The division

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of the pramâ@nas as pratyak@sa (perception), anumâna (inference), etc. is from the point of view of the objects of knowledge with reference to the varying modes in which they are brought within the purview of knowledge. The self itself however has no illumining or revealing powers, for then even in deep sleep we could have knowledge, for the self is present even then, as is proved by the remembrance of dreams. It is knowledge (sa@mvid) that reveals by its very appearance both the self, the knower, and the objects. It is generally argued against the self-illuminative character of knowledge that all cognitions are of the forms of the objects they are said to reveal; and if they have the same form we may rather say that they have the same identical reality too. The Mîmâ@msâ answer to these objections is this, that if the cognition and the cognized were not different from one another, they could not have been felt as such, and we could not have felt that it is by cognition that we apprehend the cognized objects. The cognition (sa@mvedana) of a person simply means that such a special kind of quality (dharma) has been manifested in the self by virtue of which his active operation with reference to a certain object is favoured or determined, and the object of cognition is that with reference to which the active operation of the self has been induced. Cognitions are not indeed absolutely formless, for they have the cognitional character by which things are illumined and manifested. Cognition has no other character than this, that it illumines and reveals objects. The things only are believed to have forms and only such forms as knowledge reveal to us about them. Even the dream cognition is with reference to objects that were perceived previously, and of which the impressions were left in the mind and were aroused by the unseen agency (ad@r@s@ta). Dream cognition is thus only a kind of remembrance of that which was previously experienced. Only such of the impressions of cognized objects are roused in dreams as can beget just that amount of pleasurable or painful experience, in accordance with the operation of ad@r@s@ta, as the person deserves to have in accordance with his previous merit or demerit.

The Prabhâkara Mîmâ@msâ, in refuting the arguments of those who hold that our cognitions of objects are themselves cognized by some other cognition, says that this is not possible, since we do not experience any such double cognition and also because it would lead us to a regressus ad infinitum, for if a second cognition

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is necessary to interpret the first, then that would require a third and so on. If a cognition could be the object of another cognition, then it could not be self-valid. The cognition is not of course unknown to us, but that is of course because it is self-cognized, and reveals itself to us the moment it reveals its objects. From the illumination of objects also we can infer the presence of this self-cognizing knowledge. But it is only its presence that is inferred and not the cognition itself, for inference can only indicate the presence of an object and not in the form in which it can be apprehended by perception (pratyak@sa). Prabhâkara draws a subtle distinction between perceptuality (sa@mvedyatva) and being object of knowledge (prameyatva). A thing can only be apprehended (sa@mvedyate) by perception, whereas inference can only indicate the presence of an object without apprehending the object itself. Our cognition cannot be apprehended by any other cognition. Inference can only indicate the presence or existence of knowledge but cannot apprehend the cognition itself [Footnote ref 1].

Kumârila also agrees with Prabhâkara in holding that perception is never the object of another perception and that it ends in the direct apprehensibility of the object of perception. But he says that every perception involves a relationship between the perceiver and the perceived, wherein the perceiver behaves as the agent whose activity in grasping the object is known as cognition. This is indeed different from the Prabhâkara view, that in one manifestation of knowledge the knower, the known, and the knowledge, are simultaneously illuminated (the doctrine of tripu@tîpratyak@sa) [Footnote ref 2].

The Psychology of Illusion.

The question however arises that if all apprehensions are valid, how are we to account for illusory perceptions which cannot be regarded as valid? The problem of illusory perception and its psychology is a very favourite topic of discussion in Indian philosophy. Omitting the theory of illusion of the Jains called satkhyâti which we have described before, and of the Vedântists, which we shall describe in the next chapter, there are three different theories of illusion, viz. (1) âtmakhyâti, (2) viparîtakhyâtî or anyathâkhyâti, and (3) akhyâti of the Mîmâ@msâ school. The

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[Footnote 1: See Prabhâkaramîmâ@msâ, by Dr Ga@nganâtha Jhâ.]

[Footnote 2: loc. cit. pp. 26-28.]

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viparîtâkhyâti or anyathâkhyâti theory of illusion is accepted by the Nyâya, Vais'e@sika and the Yoga, the âkhyâti theory by Mîmâ@msâ and Sâ@mkhya and the âtmakhyâti by the Buddhists.

The commonest example of illusion in Indian philosophy is the illusory appearance of a piece of broken conch-shell as a piece of silver. That such an illusion occurs is a fact which is experienced by all and agreed to by all. The differences of view are with regard to its cause or its psychology. The idealistic Buddhists who deny the existence of the external world and think that there are only the forms of knowledge, generated by the accumulated karma of past lives, hold that just as in the case of a correct perception, so also in the case of illusory perception it is the flow of knowledge which must be held responsible. The flow of knowledge on account of the peculiarities of its own collocating conditions generates sometimes what we call right perception and sometimes wrong perception or illusion. On this view nothing depends upon the so-called external data. For they do not exist, and even if they did exist, why should the same data sometimes bring about the right perception and sometimes the illusion? The flow of knowledge creates both the percept and the perceiver and unites them. This is true both in the case of correct perception and illusory perception. Nyâya objects to the above view, and says that, if knowledge irrespective of any external condition imposes upon itself the knower and the illusory percept, then the perception ought to be of the form "I am silver" and not "this is silver." Moreover this theory stands refuted, as it is based upon a false hypothesis that it is the inner knowledge which appears as coming from outside and that the external as such does not exist.

The viparîtakhyâti or the anyathâkhyâti theory supposes that the illusion takes place because on account of malobservation we do not note the peculiar traits of the conch-shell as distinguished from the silver, and at the same time by the glow etc. of the conch-shell unconsciously the silver which I had seen elsewhere is remembered and the object before me is taken as silver. In illusion the object before us with which our eye is associated is not conch-shell, for the traits peculiar to it not being grasped, it is merely an object. The silver is not utterly non-existent, for it exists elsewhere and it is the memory of it as experienced before that creates confusion and leads us to think of the conch-shell as silver. This school agrees with the akhyâti school that the fact

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that I remember silver is not taken note of at the time of illusion. But it holds that the mere non-distinction is not enough to account for the phenomenon of illusion, for there is a definite positive aspect associated with it, viz. the false identification of silver (seen elsewhere) with the conch-shell before us.

The âkhyâti theory of Mîmâ@msâ holds that since the special peculiarities of the conch-shell are not noticed, it is erroneous to say that we identify or cognize positively the conch-shell as the silver (perceived elsewhere), for the conch-shell is not cognized at all. What happens here is simply this, that only the features common to conch-shell and silver being noticed, the perceiver fails to apprehend the difference between these two things, and this gives rise to the cognition of silver. Owing to a certain weakness of the mind the remembrance of silver roused by the common features of the conch-shell and silver is not apprehended, and the fact that it is only a memory of silver seen in some past time that has appeared before him is not perceived; and it is as a result of this non-apprehension of the difference between the silver remembered and the present conch-shell that the illusion takes place. Thus, though the illusory perception partakes of a dual character of remembrance and apprehension, and as such is different from the ordinary valid perception (which is wholly a matter of direct apprehension) of real silver before us, yet as the difference between the remembrance of silver and the sight of the present object is not apprehended, the illusory perception appears at the moment of its production to be as valid as a real valid perception. Both give rise to the same kind of activity on the part of the agent, for in illusory perception the perceiver would be as eager to stoop and pick up the thing as in the case of a real perception. Kumârila agrees with this view as expounded by Prabhâkara, and further says that the illusory judgment is as valid to the cognizor at the time that he has the cognition as any real judgment could be. If subsequent experience rejects it, that does not matter, for it is admitted in Mîmâ@msâ that when later experience finds out the defects of any perception it can invalidate the original perception which was self-valid at the time of its production [Footnote Ref. 1]. It is easy to see that the Mîmâ@msâ had to adopt this view of illusion to maintain the doctrine that all cognition at the moment of its production is valid. The âkhyâti theory

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[Footnote 1: See Prakara@napañcikâ, S'âstradîpikâ, and S'lokavârttika, sûtra 2.]

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tries to establish the view that the illusion is not due to any positive wrong knowledge, but to a mere negative factor of non-apprehension due to