________________
CHAPTER IX
295
This view, in which 'spirit greets the spirit', or dĩști is srsti, has its close parallel in the well-known Berkeleyan view esse is percipi. Referring to the relation of the 'unthinking things' of the objective world to this intuitive or self-evident' principle Berkeley observes: "Their esse is percipi; nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them." !
Drstis?stivāda and its close Western parallel have been mentioned here, not merely because they are a particular school of idealism but because they represent the tendency of all idealism towards subjectivism. As a critic observes :
Calcutta, 1925), p. 126, footnotes 1 and 2. See also pp. 125-26 (the text).
Madhusudana also observes: imameva ca dịştissștivādamā. cakşate asmimś ca pakṣe jīva eva svajñānavaśājjagadupādānanimittam ca / dravyaṁ ca sarvam prātītikam / Siddhāntabindu (of Madhusudana with a Com. by Purusottama, ed. P. E. Divan, GOS, Baroda, 1933), p. 29. See also Advaitasiddhi and Prakāśā. nanda's Siddhāntamuktavali (E. T. by Arthur Venis, Reprint from the Pandit, Benares, 1890), p. 25 ff. (text).
Even the so-called 'opposite view' to this (drșțisrşțivada) viz., srstidȚşțivada, also retains the character of mentalism in so far as it maintains that the world is a "creation or emanation" from Brahman (see Siddhāntamuktāvali, Pref. p. II, f. n. 1). The difference, if there is any at all, is that in srstidsstivāda the world is supposed to 'precede' our knowledge of it, while in drsţisrstivāda it is said to be concurrent with (because it is also the creation of) our knowledge. The difference, however, is not material owing to the fact that Brahman is only an exten
sion of the individual psychic principle. 1. Of the Principles of Human Knowledge (Vol. I of The Works of
George Berkeley, in 4 Vols., ed. A.C. Fraser, Oxford, 1901), p. 259. Cf. Russell's observation that "...very many philosophers, perhaps a majority, have held that there is nothing except minds and their ideas. Such philosophers are called 'ideal ists" etc. Problems, p. 14; see also p. 37.
