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The Philosophy of Yamunācārya
[CH.
has, however, vanished from India, and we can know only from references in other works that their original writings were also in the form of sūtras1.
Yamuna's philosophy was directly opposed to the doctrine of the Cārvākas. It is best therefore that we should deal here with Yamuna's theory of soul in connection with the pretensions of the Cārvākas. Yamuna takes his stand on the notion of self-conscious
ness. He says that our preception "I know" distinctly points to the self as the subject, as distinguished from the perception of the body as 'this is my body," which is closely akin to other objective perceptions such as 'this is a jug," "this is a piece of cloth." When I restrain my senses from external objects and concentrate myself on myself, I have still the notion of my self as "I," which arises in me without the least association of my hands or feet or any other parts of the body. The body as a whole cannot be said to be indicated by my perception, when none of the parts of the body shine forth in it. Even when I say "I am fat," "I am lean," the notion of "I" does not refer to the external fat or lean body, but to some mysterious entity within me with which the body is wrongly associated. We should not forget that we also say "this is my body" as we should say "this is my house," where the body is spoken of as being different from the self as any external object. But it may be objected that we also say "my self" (mamātmā); but this is only a linguistic usage which expresses that difference, whereas the entity perceived is just the same and identical. The confusion which is felt in the fact that the notion of "I" refers to the body is due to this, that the self has no perceivable shape or form as have ordinary external objects (such as jug, cloth, etc.), by virtue of which they are distinguished from one another. Those who are not sufficiently discriminating cannot rest content with the formless self, and consequently confuse the soul with the body, more particularly because they find that corresponding to any and every desire of the soul there is a corresponding change of the body. They think that, since, corresponding to any mental change, such as new feeling, thought, or desire, there is a corresponding physical or physiological change of the body, there is no other soul different from the body. But, if
1 The first sutra of Bṛhaspati is atha tattvam vyākhyāsyāmaḥ; the second is prithivy-ap-tejo-vāyur iti tattvāni and the third is tebhyas caitanyam kiṇvādibhyo mada-saktivat.
