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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The Sankara School of Vedanta
[CH.
tact induced knowledge in us. But it regarded knowledge as a unique phenomenon which at once revealed itself, the knower and the known. We are not concerned with physical collocations, for whatever these may be it is knowledge which reveals things-the direct apprehension that should be called the pramāṇa. Pramāṇa in this sense is the same as pramiti or pramā, the phenomenon of apprehension. Pramāņa may also indeed mean the collocations so far as they induce the prama. For pramā or right knowledge is never produced, it always exists, but it manifests itself differently under different circumstances. The validity of knowledge means the conviction or the specific attitude that is generated in us with reference to the objective world. This validity is manifested with the rise of knowledge, and it does not await the verdict of any later experience in the objective field (samvadin). Knowledge as nirvikalpa (indeterminate) means the whole knowledge of the object and not merely a non-sensible hypothetical indeterminate class-notion as Nyāya holds. The savikalpa (determinate) knowledge only re-establishes the knowledge thus formed by relating it with other objects as represented by memory1.
Prabhakara rejected the Samkhya conception of a dual element in consciousness as involving a transcendent intelligence (cit) and a material part, the buddhi; but it regarded consciousness as an unique thing which by itself in one flash represented both the knower and the known. The validity of knowledge did not depend upon its faithfulness in reproducing or indicating (pradarśakatva) external objects, but upon the force that all direct apprehension (anubhuti) has of prompting us to action in the external world; knowledge is thus a complete and independent unit in all its self-revealing aspects. But what the knowledge was in itself apart from its self-revealing character Prabhākara did not enquire.
Kumārila declared that jñāna (knowledge) was a movement brought about by the activity of the self which resulted in producing consciousness (jñātatā) of objective things. Jñāna itself cannot be perceived, but can only be inferred as the movement necessary for producing the jñātatā or consciousness of things. Movement with Kumarila was not a mere atomic vibration, but was a non-sensuous transcendent operation of which vibration
1 Samkhya considered nirvikalpa as the dim knowledge of the first moment of consciousness, which, when it became clear at the next moment, was called savikalpa.