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xxx] Perception of ajñāna (ignorance) 275 there must be a root-impression and through that there can be memory of the ortti, as in the case of the memory of any other cognition?. It cannot be contended that, if ajñāna requires for its cognition a ortti state, then, if there is no such vrtti, there may be doubt regarding ajñāna; for there cannot be any ajñāna regarding ajñāna, and doubt itself, being a modification of ajñāna, has the same scope as ajñāna. It cannot be urged that, like ajñāna, negation may also be perceived by the sākṣi-consciousness; for, since negation is always associated with its defining reference, it cannot be intuitively perceived by the indeterminate intuitive sākṣi-consciousness. Though ajñāna involves an opposition to knowledge, yet the opposition is not as such intuited in the dreamless state. Madhusūdana says that it is contended that, since there is a continuous succession of ajñāna states, from the dreamless condition to the waking stage (for in the waking state also all cognitions take place by reflection through ajñāna states), there is no occasion for a memory of the dreamless intuition of ajñāna; for through samskāras memory is possible on the destruction of a vịtti state of cognition. To this the reply is that the ajñāna state of dreamless condition is of a specific nature of darkness (tamasī) which ceases with sleep, and hence there is no continuity of succession between this and the ordinary cognitive states in the waking condition. From one point of view, however, the contention is right; for it may well be maintained that in the dreamless state ajñāna exists in its causal aspect, and thus, since the ajñāna is the material for experience of both dreamless sleep and waking state, there is in reality continuity of succession of ajñāna, and thus there cannot be any memory of dreamless experience of ajñāna. It is for this reason that Sureśvara has discarded this view. The view taken by the author of the Vivarana follows the conception of sleep in the Yoga-sūtras, where a separate vștti in the dreamless state is admitted. Thus the experience of the dreamless state may well be described as relating to experience of positive ajñāna.
i ajñānasyājñāna-vrtti-prativimbita-sāksi-bhāsyatvena vrtti-nāśād eva samskaropapatteh. Advaita-siddhi, p. 557.
