________________
260 Controversy between Dualists and Monists [CH. consciousness cannot be regarded as capable of removing avidyā directly. Again, if knowledge can directly and spontaneously remove ajñāna, then it is useless to restrict the scope by saying that it removes only the beginningless ajñāna. The restriction is imposed in order to distinguish the cosmic avidyā from the phenomenal avidyā of silver-illusion, and if the spontaneous removal of ajñāna serves in both places, there is no utility in restricting the scope. It cannot be said that the epithet “beginningless" is given to ajñāna because it is the product of beginningless illusory imposition through defects; for it has already been pointed out that such a view would lead to a vicious infinite, because there can be no defect without avidyā. Again, ajñāna cannot be beginningless, because whatever is different from knowledge and also from negation cannot be beginningless like the illusory silver. Again, it is wrong to define ajñāna as positive; for on the Sankarite view ajñāna is different from both positive and negative, and therefore cannot be negative. If an entity is not positive, it must be negative; for, being different from positive, it cannot also be different from negative. Again, if there is an entity which is not a negation and has no beginning, it is not capable of being negated, but has an unnegatived existence like the self. The self also cannot be designated by any predicate explaining its positiveness, except that it is not negated. It has been pointed out in the Vivarana that it is immaterial whether an entity is beginningless or has a beginning; for in either case it may be destructible, provided that there is sufficient cause for its destruction. The general inference that a beginningless positive entity cannot cease has its exception in the special case of ajñāna, which would cease to exist with the dawn of jñāna. If it is urged that, since ajñāna is both beginningless and different from negation, it ought to persist eternally, like the self, it may also be urged on the opposite side that, since ajñāna is different also from “positive," it ought to be liable to destruction, like negation-precedent-to-production. To this the reply is that the inference is that no beginningless positive entity is confronted with anything which can oppose or destroy it. Any refutation of this argument must take the form of citing an instance where the concomitance fails, and not of any mere opposite assertion. No instance can be adduced to illustrate the assertion that the beginningless ajñāna can be removed by jñāna; for the removal of ignorance by knowledge is always with
