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There cannot be the law of causality here; for there cannot be any operation of the law of causality as production between two entities which are simultaneous. Tattva-samgraha and Paijikd, 2030, 2031. 2 tad vasand-sameta-samanantora-pratyaya-samuttham sankalanatmakam pra- tyaydntaram etan neha sambandhagamah. Padmapada’s (A.D. 820) Pafica-padika, p. 25. This work exerted the greatest influence on the development of Vedantic thought for about six or seven centuries, and several commentaries were written on it. Most important of these are Prakasatman’s Paficapadika-vivarana, Pan- ca-padikadhyasa-bhasya-vyakhyd, Pafica-padika-sastra-darpana by Amrtananda, Tattva-dipana by Amrtanandanatha, and also a commentary by Anandapirna Yati. Prakasatman’s commentary on it, called Pafcapdadika-vivarana, was com- mented upon by Akhandananda Muni in his Tattva-dipana, by Ramananda Sarasvati in his Vivaranopanydsa, and by Nrsimhasrama in his Pafica-padika- vivarana-bhava-prakasika. 32 The Sankara School of Vedanta (cH. ally, the awareness and its object seem to be different, but such a psychological appearance can at best be considered as a mental illusion or fiction; for logically the Buddhist cannot admit that a momentary appearance could subsist long enough to have the possibility of being relationed to the self and the awareness, as in “I know the blue”’; and, if the blue was not considered to be identical with awareness, there would remain no way to explain the possibility of the appearance of the blue in the awareness’. Padmapada points out that the main point with the Buddhists is the doctrine of causal efficiency (artha-kriya-karitva), or the maxim that that alone exists which can prove its existence by effecting some purpose or action. They hold further that this criterion of existence can be satisfied only if all existents are momentary and if all things are momentary; the only epistemological view that can consistently be accepted is the identity of the awareness and the object. The main reason why only momentary existents can satisfy the criterion of causal efficiency is that, if the existents were not assumed to be momentary, they could not effect any purpose or action?. Padmapada urges in refutation of this that, if causal efficiency means the productivity of its own awareness (sva-visaya- jfiana-jananam), then an awareness or idea has no existence; for it does not produce any other knowledge of itself (samvidam sva-visaya- jnana-jananad asallaksanatvam), and the awareness of one cannot be known by others except by inference, which again would not be direct cognition®. If causal efficiency means the production of another moment, then the last moment, having no other moment to produce, would itself be non-existent; and, if the last moment is proved to be non-existent, then by turns all the other moments would be non-existent. Existence is a nature of things; and even when a thing remains silent after an operation it does not on that account cease to exist*. On such a basis Prakasatman points out 1 nanubhavam Gsritya samvedanad abhinnam nilam briimah kintu vijiidnena nilasya pratibhasanyathanupapattya ; ksanikasya tv dgantuka-sambandhabhave... pratibhasa eva na syat. Pafica-padika-vivarana, p. 74. 2 See the first volume of this work, pp. 163-164, where the reasons in justification of the doctrine are briefly stated. 8 Padmapada derives the possibility of one’s being aware of an awareness, which however hardly appears to be convincing. He thinks that an awareness, being of the nature of light, does not stand in need of any other light to illuminate it. ma ca samvit samvido visayah samvid-dtmana bhedabhavat pradipasyeva pradipantaram. Pafica-padika, p. 27. * nartha-kriya-karitva-laksanam sattvam kintu svuabhavikam iti sakrt karyyam ne tusnimbhiitasyapi sthayinah sattvam na virudhyate. Pafica-padikd-vivarana, p. 80. x1] Thought and its Object in Buddhism and Vedanta 33 that the supposed three notions of ‘I,’ ‘‘awareness” and the object are really not three distinct notions appearing as one on account of their similarity, but all the three are joined together in one identical subject-object-awareness which does not involve the three successive stages which the Buddhists suppose. This identity is proved by the fact that they are recognized (pratyabhijna) to be so. We are, again, all conscious of our own identity, that we persist in all our changing states of consciousness, and that, though our ideas are continually changing with the changing objects, we remain unchanged all the same; and this shows that in knowing ourselves as pure awareness we are successively connected with the changing objects. But the question arises who is to be convinced of this identity, a notion of which can be produced only by a relationing of the previous existence (through sub-conscious impressions of memory) to the existence of the present moment; and this cannot be done by the Vedantic self, which is pure self-revealing consciousness that cannot further be made an object of any other conscious state; for it is unchangeable, indestructible, and there cannot be in it a consciousness of relationing between a past state and a present state through the sub-conscious impressions of memory?. The mere persistence of the same consciousness is not the recognition of identity; for the recognition of identity would be a relation uniting the past as past with the present as present; and, since there is no one to perceive the relation of identity, the appearance of identity is false. The Vedantic answer to such an objection is that, though the pure consciousness cannot behave as an individual, yet the same consciousness associated with mind (antahkarana-visista) may behave as an individual who can recognize his own identity as well as that of others. The mind is associated with the sub-conscious impressions of a felt ego (ahamurtti-samskara-sahitam), due to the experience of the self as associated with a past time; being responsible for the experience of the self as associated with the present time, it produces the notion of the identity of the self as persisting both in the past and in the present. A natural objection against such an explanation is that, since the Vedanta does not admit that one awareness can be the object of another awareness, the revival of a past awareness is 1 parvanubhava-samskara-sahitad idanimtana-vastu-pramiti-karandg jatam ehasya kala-dvaya-sambandha-visayakam pratyaksa-jnanam pratyabhyha iti cet, na tarhi atmani sa sambhavati...vijidna-svabhavasya hy atmanah. . .jfiananta- ragamyatvat... Panca-padikd-vivarana, p. 75. DI 3 34 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. impossible, without which recognition of identity would be im- possible. The answer of the Vedantist is that, just as an idea is remembered through its sub-conscious impressions, so, though recognition of identity was absent in the preceding moment, yet it could arise through the operation of the sub-conscious im- pressions at a later moment!. According to the Vedanta the pure consciousness is the only unchanging substance underlying; it is this consciousness associated with mind (antahkarana) that behaves as the knower or the subject, and it is the same consciousness associated with the previous and later time that appears as the objective self with which the identity is felt and which is known to be identical with the knower—the mind-associated conscious- ness. We all have notions of self-identity and we feel it as “I am the same’”’; and the only way in which this can be explained is on the basis of the fact that consciousness, though one and universal, can yet be supposed to perform diverse functions by virtue of the diverse nature of its associations, by which it seems to transform itself as the knower and the thousand varieties of relations and objects which it knows. The main point which is to be noted in connection with this realization of the identity of the self is that the previous experience and its memory prove that the self existed in the past ; but how are we to prove that what existed is also existing at the present moment? Knowledge of identity of the self is some- thing different from the experience of self in the past and in the present. But the process consists in this, that the two experiences manifest the self as one identical entity which persisted through both the experiences, and this new experience makes the self known in the aforesaid relation of identity. Again, when I remember a past experience, it is the self as associated with that experience that is remembered; so it is the self as associated with the different time relations that is apprehended in an experience of the identity of self. From all these discussions one thing that comes out clearly is that according to the Sankara Vedanta, as explained by the Vivarana school of Padmapada and his followers, the sense-data and the objects have an existence independent of their being perceived; and there is also the mind called antahkarana, which operates in its own way for the apprehension of this or that object. Are objects already there and presented to the pure consciousness through the 1 Pafica-padika-vivarana, p. 76. x1] Thought and its Object in Buddhism and Vedanta 35 mind? But what then are the objects? and the Sankarite’s answer is that they in themselves are unspeakable and indescribable. It is easy to notice the difference of such a view from that of the Buddhistic idealism of Dinnaga or the Lankavatara on the one hand and that of Vasubandhu in his Trimsika on the other. For in the case of the former there were no objects independent of their being perceived, and in the case of the latter the objects are trans- formations of a thought-principle and are as such objective to the subject which apprehends them.