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

Page 477

460 The Sankara School of Vedānta [ch. constitution and not on the self. If it is regarded as a quality of the self as the light is of the lamp, then also it has necessarily to be supposed that it was produced by the self, for from what else could it be produced? Thus it is to be admitted that the self, the ātman, is the self-luminous entity. No one doubts any of his knowledge, whether it is he who sees or anybody else. The self is thus the same as vijñāna, the pure consciousness, which is always of itself self-luminous!
Again, though consciousness is continuous in all stages, waking or sleeping, yet ahamkāra is absent during deep sleep. It is true that on waking from deep sleep one feels “I slept happily and did not know anything”: yet what happens is this, that during deep sleep the antahkarana and the ahamkāra are altogether submerged in the ajñāna, and there are only the ajñāna and the self; on waking, this ahamkāra as a state of antaḥkarna is again generated, and then it associates the perception of the ajñāna in the sleep and originates the perception “I did not know anything." This ahamkāra which is a mode (vrtti) of the antaḥkarana is thus constituted by avidyā, and is manifested as jñānaśakti (power of knowledge) and kriyāśakti (power of work). This kriyāśakti of the ahamkāra is illusorily imposed upon the self, and as a result of that the self appears to be an active agent in knowing and willing. The ahamkára itself is regarded, as we have already seen, as a mode or vịtti of the antahkarana, and as such the ahamkāra of a past period can now be associated; but even then the vṛtti of antahkarana, ahamkāra, may be regarded as only the active side or aspect of. the antahkarana. The same antahkarana is called manas in its capacity as doubt, buddhi in its capacity as achieving certainty of knowledge, and citta in its capacity as remembering? When the pure cit shines forth in association with this antahkarana, it is called a jīva. It is clear from the above account that the ajñāna is not a mere nothing, but is the principle of the phenomena. But it cannot stand alone, without the principle of the real to support it (aśraya); its own nature as the ajñāna or indefinite is perceived directly by the pure consciousness; its movements as originating the phenomena remain indefinite in themselves, the real as under
1 See Nyāyamakaranda, pp. 130-140, Citsukha and Vivaranaprameyasamgraha, PP. 53-58.
2 See Vedānta-paribhāși, p. 88, Bombay edition.