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342 The Philosophy of Vallabha
[CH. In agreement with the monistic Vedānta of Sankara tamas (darkness) is regarded here as a separate caregory and not as the mere negation of light. Negation itself is regarded as the positive existence of the locus in which the negation appears with specific reference to the appearance or disappearance of the negated object. Thus in the case of negation-precedent-to-production (prāgabhāva) of a jug, the simple material cause which will be helpful to the production or the appearance of the jug is regarded as the negative-precedent-to-production of the jug. In the case of negation of destruction (dhvamsābhāva) the cause is helpful to the disappearance of the jug, and is thus associated with the special quality that is regarded as the negation of destruction. The concept of negation is thus included in the conception of the cause; negation is thus a specific mode of samavāyi kārana and therefore identical with it.
Regarding the manner in which visual cognitions of things are possible, the Samkhya and Vedānta uphold the subsistence of a vrtti (vrtti means mental state). When after looking at a thing we shut our eyes, there is an after-image of the object. This after-image cannot belong to the object itself, because our eyes are shut; it must itself belong to the ahamkāra or the buddhi. It is supposed by the Sāmkhya and the Vedānta that this vrtti goes to external objects near and far and thereby produces a relation between the buddhi and the object. It may naturally be objected that this vrtti is not a substance and therefore cannot travel far and wide. The Sāmkhya and the Vedānta reply again that, since such travelling is proved by the facts of perception, we have to admit it; there is no rule that only existing substances should be able to travel and that in the absence of substance there should be no travelling. The Naiyāyikas, however, think that certain rays emanate from the eye and go to the object, sense-contact is thereby produced in association with the manas and ātman, and the result is sense-cognition; they therefore do not admit the existence of a separate vrtti. Purusottama, however, admits the vrtti, but not in the same way as the Vedāntists and the Sāmkhya; according to him this vrtti is a state of the buddhi which has been roused through the category of time and has manifested a preponderance of sattva quality. Time is hereby admitted as a category existing in the buddhi and not in the senses as it is in the Vedānta of Sankara (explained by Dharmarājā-dhvarindra in
