History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

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Indefinability of World-appearance
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even animals know that they are different from their bodies and that, though their bodies change from birth to birth, they themselves remain the same all through.
Madhusudana says in reply that the false identification of the body and the ego is possible because ego has for a constituent the pure consciousness, and thus the false identification with it means identification with consciousness. Moreover, it is wrong to say that, if perception reveals the identity between the body and self, then it is not possible through inference to establish their difference. For it is well known (e.g., in the case of the apparent size of the moon in perception) that the results of perception are often revised by well-established inference and authority. Again, the objection that, all difference being illusory, the opposite of difference, viz., false identification, must be true, is wrong; for in the discussion on the nature of falsehood it has been shown that both the positive and the negative may at the same time be illusory. Moreover, the false identification of the body with the self can be dispelled in our ordinary life by inference and the testimony of scriptural texts, whereas the illusion of all difference can be dispelled only by the last cognitive state preceding emancipation. Madhusudana holds that all explanation in regard to the connection of the body with the self is unavailing, and the only explanation that seems to be cogent is that the body is an illusory imposition upon the self.
Indefinability of World-appearance.
It is urged by Vyasa-tīrtha that it is difficult for the Sankarites to prove that the world-appearance is indefinable (anirvācya), whatever may be the meaning of such a term. Thus, since it is called indefinable, that is in itself a sufficient description of its nature; nor can it be said that there is an absence of the knowledge or the object which might have led to a definition or description; for in their absence no reference to description would be at all possible. Nor can it be said that indefinability means that it is different from both being and non-being; for, being different from them, it could be the combination of them. To this Madhusudana's reply is that the indefinability consists in the fact that the world-appearance is neither being nor non-being nor being-and-non-being. Indefinability may also be said to consist in the fact that the world