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xxix] Nature of Knowledge
241 should, on our theory, be expected to behave as immediate; for in the case of immediate perception there is a direct identity of consciousness and the object through the ortti, and therefore the object behaves as the object of cognition in that specific direct relation. The mediacy or immediacy of cognition depends on the specific nature of the object, and not on the specific modifications of the vrtti in the two cases, nor can the two be regarded as two different classes of cognition; for on such a supposition such cognition or recognition as “this is the man I knew,” where there seems to be a mixture of mediate and immediate cognition, will involve a joint operation of two distinct classes of cognition in the same knowledge; which is obviously absurd.
It must be borne in mind that the vrtti by itself is merely an operation which cannot constitute conscious illumination; the vrtti can lead to an illumination only through its association with pure consciousness, and not by itself alone. It is wrong to suppose that there is no difference between a transitive (as when one says “I know a jug") and an intransitive (as when one says "the jug has come into consciousness”) operation; for the distinction is well attested in experience as involving a direct and an indirect method. The same vrtti (operation), however, cannot be regarded as both transitive and intransitive at the same time, though with different and indifferent circumstances an operation may be both transitive and intransitive. Such instances of experience as "the past is revealed” are to be explained on the supposition that the pure consciousness is revealed through a particular modification of the vịtti as past.
Again, it is contended by the opponents that, though it may be admitted that pure consciousness manifests the object, yet there is no necessity why the antaḥkaraṇa should be supposed to go out of the body and be in contact with the object of perception. The difference between mediate and immediate knowledge may well be accounted for on the supposition of different kinds of mediate or immediate operation through which the consciousness is revealed in each casel: for, just as in mediate knowledge there is no actual contact of the antaḥkarana-vrtti with the object, but yet the cognition is possible through the presence of adequate causes which
parokşa-vailaksanyāya vişayasyābhivyaktāparokşa-cid-uparāga eva vaktavyaḥ. Ibid. p. 482.
