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The Philosophy of Yāmunācārya [CH. to each of the senses, then that which was perceived by one sense (e.g. the eye) could not be perceived by another sense (e.g. the touch), and there would not rise the consciousness "I touch that which I had seen before." If all the senses together produced consciousness, then we could not perceive anything with one sense (e.g. the eye), nor could we have any consciousness, or the memory of the object of any particular sense after that sense was lost; when a man was blinded, he would lose all consciousness, or would never remember the objects which he had seen before with his eyes.
Nor can the manas be regarded as ātman; for it is only an organ accepted as accounting for the fact that knowledge is produced in succession and not in simultaneity. If it is said that the manas may be regarded as being a separate organ by which it can know in succession, then practically the self, or ātman, is admitted; the only difference being this, that the Cārvākas call manas what we (Yamuna and his followers) call ātman.
The Vijñānarādin Buddhists held that knowledge, while selfmanifesting, also manifested the objects and so knowledge should be regarded as the self (ātman). Against these Buddhists Vāmuna held that, if any permanent seat of knowledge was not admitted, then the phenomenon of personal identity and recognition could not be explained by the transitory states of self-manifesting knowledge; if each knowledge came and passed, how could one identify one's present experiences with the past, if there were only flowing states of knowledge and no persons? Since there was no permanence, it could not be held that any knowledge persisted as an abiding factor on the basis of which the phenomenon of selfidentity or recognition could be explained. Each knowledge being absent while others came, there was no chance of even an illusion of sameness on grounds of similarity.
'The doctrine of the Sankara school, that there is one quality less permanent pure consciousness, is regarded by Yamuna as being against all experience. Thus, consciousness is always felt as belonging to a person and as generated, sustained for a time, and then lost. At the time of deep sleep we all cease to possess knowledge, and this is demonstrated by our impression on waking that we have slept for so long, without consciousness. If the antahkarana, which the Advaitins regard as the substratum of the notion of “I," had been submerged during the sleep, then there could not have been
