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XXIX] The World as Illusion
247 Madhusudana's reply is that a knowledge of the general characteristic of the locus of illusion is by no means indispensable; what is necessary is that the true nature of the object should be known without any of its specific details. In the case of Brahman the nature is self-luminous bliss, but the specific characters of such bliss, as greater or less, and any variation in its quality, are not known; so there is no impropriety in considering Brahman as the locus of illusion. But the defence may be made in another way; for Madhusudana says that an imaginary general characteristic and special features may well be conceived of Brahman without involving the fallacy of the circle (anyonyāśraya), if we assume the beginningless character of all such imaginary qualities. The characters of Brahman as being and bliss may be regarded as generic, and the fullness of the bliss may be regarded as specific. So the quality of existence or being that is found in all things may be regarded as a generic quality of Brahman, on the basis of which the illusions take place in the absence of the specific quality of Brahman as fullness of bliss. The inadequacy of the reply is obvious; for the objection was made on the ground that all illusions are psychological in their nature and are possible only through confusion of individual things, which have both universal and specific qualities, whereas the Brahman, being the absolute, is devoid of all characters on the basis of which any illusion is possible.
Vyāsa-tirtha in this connection further points out that, if it is suggested that an illusion can remain when there is no cognition antagonistic to illusory perception and that the ajñāna in itself is opposed not to the illusion of world-appearance, but to its form as vrtti, the reply is that, since the definition of ajñāna is "that which is opposed to consciousness,” the above view, which considers that the ajñāna is not opposed to consciousness, would hardly justify us in speaking of ajñāna as ajñāna; for, if it is not opposed to knowledge, it has no right to be so called. Moreover, the self and the not-self, the perceiver and the perceived, are so different from each other, that there is no scope for illusion between them. Thus Vedāntists themselves assert that, among entities that are spatially separated or whose essences are entirely different, the speaker and the person spoken to, there cannot be any possibility of doubt about their identity. Moreover, unless the nature of the locus of
