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xx] Rāmānuja's theory of Illusion
187 the experience in such cases of the belief of one thing as another is not explained'. In all such cases the final appeal must be made to experience, which attests all cases of illusion as being the appearance of one thing as another?
But though Vādihamsāmbuvāhācārya thus tries to support the anyathā-khyāti view of illusion, yet he does not dismiss the akhyāti view of error curtly, but admits that it may also properly explain facts of illusion, when looked at from another point of view. For, if there was not the non-apprehension of difference between silver and conch-shell, the conch-shell could not be mistaken as silver. So, even in anyatha-khyāti, there is one element of akhyāti involved; for in order that one may behave towards a piece of conchshell in the same way as one would do to a piece of silver, it is necessary that one should not be able to distinguish between what one sees before one and what one remembers. But, though the negative fact of akhyāti, i.e., non-apprehension of difference, may be regarded in many cases as a necessary stage, yet the positive fact of association (samsarga) or synthesis has to be admitted as an indispensable process, connecting the different elements constituting a concrete perception. The root-cause of all our behaviour and action, being of the nature of synthetic association, it would be wrong to suppose that non-apprehension of difference could by itself be made a real cause of our actions (na ca mūla-bhūte samsargajñāne pravrtti-kārane siddhe tad-upajīvino nirantara-jñānasya prazrttihetutvam iti yuktam vaktum)? Although Vādihamsāmbuvāha spends all his discussions on the relative strength of akhyāti and anyatha-khyāti as probable theories of illusion, yet he refers to the view of illusion mentioned by Rāmānuja that all things are present in all things and that therefore no knowledge is illusory. He considers this view as the real and ultimately correct view. But, if this were so, all his discussions on the akhyāti and anyathakhyāti theories of illusion would be futile. Vādihamsāmbuvāha does not, however, attempt to show how, if this theory be admitted, the other theories of akhyāti or anyatha-khyāti could be sup
yadi cā'trā'pi bhedā-grahaḥ saraṇam syāt tato'bhimāna-viseșa-kyta-bādhavyavasthā na sidhyet. Govt. Oriental MS. No. 4910.
2 katham ayam loka-vyavahāro urtta iti, na hi kañcid upādhim anālambya loke sabda-prayogo'vakalpyate, tasmād bādhya-bādhaka-bhāvā-nyathā-nupapattyā anyatha-khyāti-siddhih. Ibid.
9 Ibid.
