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266 Controversy between Dualists and Monists [CH. essential concept of ajñāna. Even a negation of knowledge which has a reference to the object of which there is the negation may also have no such reference when it is taken up as being itself an object of the enquiry of knowledge. Thus there is no way in which ajñāna can be regarded as anything but a negation of knowledge; and the supposition that ajñāna, though in its analytical concept it involves two constituents-knowledge and its negation-yet is only a name for a positive concept which does not involve these constituents, is wrong? If ajñāna can be removed by ortti knowledge, it is unnecessary to suppose that it has any other meaning different from that involved in its constituent negative particle qualifying knowledge. Experience also shows that ajñāna has no other meaning than the negation of knowledge; so, unless the entity which is the defining reference of ajñāna is known, there cannot be any knowledge of ajñāna. But such a defining reference being Brahmaknowledge which has no ajñāna associated with it, the inclusion of the defining reference would make the concept impossible: hence there cannot be any knowledge of ajñāna”.
The reply made by the Sankarites is that the defining reference of ajñāna is Brahma-knowledge and this Brahma-knowledge as sākşi-consciousness, being the manifester of ajñāna, is not opposed to it; for it is only the vrtti shade mind that is opposed to ajñāna. So, there being no opposition between the Brahma-knowledge as sākşi-consciousness and the ajñāna, it is quite possible to have a knowledge of ajñāna in spite of the fact that Brahma-knowledge becomes in a sense its constituent as a defining reference. But it may be pointed out in reply that the awareness of Brahma-knowledge is the sāksi-consciousness; the experience “I do not know" is a negation of vrtti knowledge and, as such, it may be referred to the sāksi-consciousness even when there is no ortti knowledge. Thus the solution in the theory that ajñāna is nothing but negation of knowledge would be just the same as in the theory of ajñāna as positive entity. If it is contended that, though denial of knowledge may be related to the defining reference in a general manner, yet it may, in its specific form, appear as a mere positive ignorance
* jñānābhāvo'pi hi prameyatvādinājñāne pratiyogy-ādi-jñānānapeksa etena nipune kusalādi-sabdavat bhāva-rūpa-jñāne ajñānasabdo rūdha iti nirastam. Nyāyāmīta, p. 312.
api ca bhāva-rūpājñānāvacchedaka-visayasyājñāne ajñāna-jñānāyogāt jñāne ca ajñānasaitābhāvāt katham bhāva-rūpājñānajñānam. Ibid. p. 313.
