Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 006972
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 162
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 14 MB

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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
the Buddhist logicians declared that knowing and seeing can occur simultaneously at this level.40 They have not laid down any condition for their simultaneous occurrence. This suggests that two faculties of seeing and knowing, though quite different, rather being quite different, can operate simultaneously.
Moreover, these Buddhist logicians observe that two or more knowings (= thoughts) can never occur simultaneously," but two or more seeings (darśana) due to six organs can occur simultaneously. Thus they maintain that all the six darśanas due to six organs can occur simultaneously. Why so ? It is so because there are six instruments of seeing but only one instrument of knowing. When all the six instruments of seeing operate simultaneously six darśanas occur simultaneously. But mind (= manas) being the only instrument of knowing (= thought = jñāna), only one knowing or jñāna can take place at a time. Were there two or more minds (instruments of thought) there would have been a possibility of occurring two or more knowings (= thoughts = jñāna) simultaneously.
The six darśanas due to six organs can occur simultaneously with the occurrence of jñāna and can co-exist with jñāna. But darsana in nonreflective meditation, being what it is, neither occurs simultaneously with the occurrence of jñāna nor does it co-exist with jñāna. (Let us remember here that in case of momentary things simultaneous occurrence and coexistence mean one and the same thing).
The Sānkhya-Yoga thinkers, as we have seen, maintain that each and every cognition has both the aspects 'seeing and knowing'. Buddhists contend that no cognition has both these aspects. The cognitions that go by the name of knowing (= jñāna = vikalpa) are totally different from those that go by the name of seeing (= darśana = pratyakşa). They do not accept internal fissure or dichotomy in one and the same cognition. Barring non-reflective meditation they accept that seeing and knowing can co-exist, that is, two cognitions of quite different natures can coexist. But they never accept that seeing and knowing both together constitute one cognition. This characteristic of the Buddhist philosophy has been clearly brought out by the Buddhist logicians in their exposition of pratyakşa.
The Sānkhya-Yoga philosophers regard the faculties of seeing and knowing as fundamentally different from one another. Again, they view them so fundamentally different that they could not be attributed to one