English
The real nature of 1 na vayam bhedasya sarvathaivasattvam abhyupagacchamah, kim néma na paramarthikam sattvam; avidyd-vidyamanatvam tu tadiyam isyata eva. Khan- dana-khanda-khddya, p. 214. 2 E.g. when a man rightly guesses the number of shells closed in another _ man’s hand, or when one makes a false inference of fire on a hill from a fog looking like smoke from a distance and there is fire on the hill by chance—his judgment may be right though his inference may be false. 134 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. an object is indeterminable, and so correspondence of awareness with the object may rather be defined as similarity of the former to the latter. If this similarity means that the awareness must have such a character as is possessed by the object (jnana- visayikrtena riipena sadysyam), then this is clearly impossible; for qualities that belong to the object cannot belong to the awareness —there may be an awareness of two white hard marbles, but the awareness is neither two, nor white, nor hard!. It may be urged that the correspondence consists in this, that the whiteness etc. belong to the object as qualities possessed by it, whereas they belong to awareness as being qualities which it reveals?. But that would not hold good in the case of illusory perception of silver in a conch-shell; the awareness of “‘ before me”’ in the perception of ‘‘before me the silver” has to be admitted as being a right cognition. If this is admitted to be a right cognition, then it was meaningless to define right cognition as true correspondence; it might as well have been defined as mere cognition, since all cognition would have some object to which it referred and so far as that only was concerned all cognitions would be valid. If, however, entire correspondence of thought and object be urged, then partial correspondence like the above can hardly be considered satisfactory. But, if entire correspondence is considered indispensable, then the correctness of the partial correspondence has to be ignored, whereas it is admitted by the Naiyayika that, so far as reference to an object is concerned, all cognitions are valid; only the nature of cognition may be disputed as to. right or wrong, when we are considering the correspondence of the nature of the object and the nature charac- terized by the awareness of the object. If entire correspondence with the object is not assured, then cognition of an object with imperfect or partial correspondence, due to obstructive circum- stances, has also to be rejected as false. Again, since the correspondence always refers to the character, form or appearance of the thing, all our affirmations regarding the objects to which the characters are supposed to belong would be false. Referring to Udayana’s definition of right cognition as samyak paricchitti, or proper discernment, Sriharsa says that the word 1 dvau ghatau suklav ityatra riipa-samkhyddi-samavdayitvam na jnanasya gunatvad atah prakasamdana-riipena artha-sddrsyam jidnasya nasti—asti ca tasya jnanasya tatra ghatayoh pramatvam. Vidyd-sagari on Khandana, p. 398. : = arthasya hi yatha samavayad riipam visesanibhavati tatha visayabhavaj jnanasyapi tad-visesanam bhavaty eva. Khandana, p. 399. x1] Application of Dialectic to Different Categories 135 “‘samyak”’ (proper) is meaningless ; for, if samyak means “ entire,” then the definition is useless, since it is impossible to see all the visible and invisible constituent parts of a thing, and no one but an omniscient being could perceive a thing with all its characters, properties or qualities. If right discernment means the discern- ment of an object with its special distinguishing features, this again is unintelligible; for even in wrong cognition, say of conch-shell as silver, the perceiver seems to perceive the distinguishing marks of silver in the conch-shell. The whole point lies in tne difficulty of judging whether the distinguishing marks observed are real or not, and there is no way of determining this. If, again, the dis- tinguishing features be described as being those characteristics without the perception of which there can be no certain knowledge and the perception of which ensures right cognition, then it may well be pointed out that it is impossible to discover any feature of any cognition of which one can be positively certain that it is not wrong. A dreamer confuses all sorts of characters and appearances and conceives them all to be right. It may be urged that in the case of right perception the object is perceived with its special distinguishing features, as in the case of the true perception of silver, whereas in the case of the false perception of silver in the conch-shell no such distinguishing features are observed. But even in this case it would be difficult to define the essential nature of the distinguishing features; for, if any kind of distinguishing feature would do, then in the case of the false perception of silver in the conch-shell the distinguishing feature of being before the eyes is also possessed by the conch-shell. If all the particular distinguishing features are insisted on, then there will be endless distinguishing features, and it would be impossible to make any definition which would include them all. The certitude of a cogni- tion which contradicts a previous wrong cognition would often be liable to the same objection as the wrong cognition itself, since the nature of the special distinguishing features which would establish its validity cannot be established by any definition of right knowledge. Arguing against the definition of right cognition as “‘appre- hension which is not incorrect or not defective” (avyabhicari anubhavah), Sriharsa says that ‘‘not incorrect” or “not defective” _ cannot mean that the cognition must exist only at the time when the object exists; for then inferential cognition, which often refers ¢ 136 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. to past and future things, would be false. Neither can it mean that the cognition coexists in space with its objects; nor can it mean that the right cognition is similar to its object in all respects, since cognition is so different in nature from the object that it is not possible that there should be any case in which it would be similar thereto in all respects. And, if the view that an awareness and its object are one and the same be accepted, then this would apply even to those cases where one object is wrongly perceived as another; and hence the word “‘avyabhicari” is not sufficient to distinguish right knowledge from wrong cognition. Arguing against the Buddhist definition of right cognition as ‘an apprehension which is not incompatible (avisamvadt) with the object known,” Sriharga tries to refute the definition in all the possible senses of incompatibility of cognition with object which determines wrong knowledge. If the definition is supposed to restrict right cognition to cognition which is cognized by another cognition as being in agreement with its object, then a wrong cognition, repeated successively through a number of moments and found to be in agreement with its object through all the successive moments until it is contradicted, would also have to be admitted as right, because in this case the previous cognition is certified by the cognition of the succeeding moments. If, again, right cognition is defined as a cognition the incompatibility of which with its object is not realized by any other cognition, then also there are difficulties in the way. For even a wrong cognition may for some time be not contradicted by any other cognition. Moreover, the vision of the conch-shell by the normal eye as white may be contradicted by the later vision by the jaundiced eye as yellow. If it is urged that the contradiction must be by a faultless later cognition, then it may be pointed out that, if there had been any way of defining faultless cognition, the definition of right cognition would have been very easy. On the other hand, unless right cognition is properly defined, there is no meaning in speaking of faulty or wrong cognition. If right cognition is defined as a cognition which has causal efficiency, that in fact is not a proper definition; for even the wrong cognition of a snake might cause fear and even death. If it is urged that the causal efficiency must be exercised by the object in the same form in which it is perceived, then it is very difficult to ascertain this; and there may be a false cognition of causal effi- x1] Application of Dialectic to Different Categories 137 ciency also; hence it would be very difficult to ascertain the nature of right cognition on the basis of causal efficiency. Sriharsa points out again that in a similar way Dharmakirti’s definition of right cognition as enabling one to attain the object (artha-prapakatva) is also unintelligible, since it is difficult to determine which object can be actually attained and which not, and the notion that the thing may be attained as it is perceived may be present even in the case of the wrong perception of silver in the conch-shell. If right cognition is defined as cognition which is not contradicted, then it may be asked whether the absence of contradiction is at the time of perception only, in which case even the wrong perception of silver in the conch-shell would be a right cognition, since it is uncontradicted at least at the time when the illusion is produced. If it is urged that a right cognition is that which is not contradicted at any time, then we are not in a position to assert the rightness of any cognition; for it is impossible to be certain that any par- ticular cognition will never at any time be contradicted.