________________
xxix] Nature of Knowledge
231 even if fire is not known as fire, it can burn all the same. Thus existence does not depend upon any kind of awareness. It is also wrong to define reality as practical behaviour; for, unless the nature of world-appearance is known, the nature of practical behaviour is not known. The world as such must be either existent or non-existent, and there is no other third way of subsistence; the non-existence of the world cannot be proved by any existent proof, because existence and non-existence are opposed to each other; nor can it be proved by non-existent proofs, simply because they are non-existent. There cannot be any being such that it exists in common with non-being and ultimate being?
Madusūdana says that the false may be distinguished from the true by exactly the same kind of considerations which lead the opponent to distinguish between the perception of the blueness of the sky and the ordinary objects of experience such as a jug, a rope, etc. The nature of reality that has been conceded to the worldappearance is that it is not contradicted by anything other than Brahma-knowledge.
Vyāsa-tirtha points out that the contention of the Sankarites that there cannot be any relation between knowledge and its contents is borrowed from the Buddhists, who consider awareness and its objects to be the same. The Sankarites hold that, if the objects are considered to be real, then it is difficult to show how there can be any relation between knowledge and the objects revealed by it; for the two accepted relations of contact and inseparable inherence (samavāya) cannot hold between them. The relation of objectivity is also too obscure to be defined; and therefore it must be admitted that the relation between knowledge and the objects is wholly illusory.
To this Vyāsa-tirtha replies that, though all objects are regarded by the Sankarites as illusorily imposed upon the one supreme perceiver, the Brahman, yet for explanation of specific cognitions of specific individuals, sense-contact, leading to the rise of different perceptions of different individuals, is admitted by them. The Sankarites are not idealists to the same extent as the Buddhists are. Even if it be admitted that pure consciousness may appear different under various conditions, yet there is no reason why the world
ināpi sat-trayānugatam sat-dvayānugatam Nyāyāmsta, p. 174.
vā satva-sāmānyam
tantram.
