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222 The Sankara School of Vedānta
[CH. the world?” it is said that nescience (ajñāna— literally, want of knowledge) is the cause, the respondent simply wants to obviate the awkward silence. The nature of this nescience cannot, however, be proved by any of the pramānas; for it is like darkness and the pramāņas or the valid ways of cognition are like light, and it is impossible to perceive darkness by light. Nescience is that which cannot be known except through something else, by its relation to something else, and it is inexplicable in itself, yet beginningless and positive. It will be futile for any one to try to understand it as it is in itself. Nescience is proved by one's own consciousness : so it is useless to ask how nescience is proved. Yet it is destroyed when the identity of the self with the immediately presented Brahman is realized. The destruction of nescience cannot mean its cessation together with its products, as Prakāśātman holds in the Vivarana; for such a definition would not apply, whether taken simply or jointly. Prakāśānanda, therefore, defines it as the conviction, following the realization of the underlying ground, that the appearance which was illusorily imposed on it did not exist. This view is different from the anyathā-khyāti view, that the surmised appearance was elsewhere and not on the ground on which it was imposed; for here, when the underlying ground is immediately intuited, the false appearance absolutely vanishes, and it is felt that it was not there, it is not anywhere, and it will not be anywhere; and it is this conviction that is technically called bādha. The indefinability of nescience is its negation on the ground on which it appears (pratipannopādhau nişedha-pratiyogitvam). This negation of all else excepting Brahman has thus two forms; in one form it is negation and in another form this negation, being included within "all else except Brahman," is itself an illusory imposition, and this latter form thus is itself contradicted and negated by its former form. Thus it would be wrong to argue that, since this negation remains after the realization of Brahman, it would not itself be negated, and hence it would be a dual principle existing side by side with Brahman?.
True knowledge is opposed to false knowledge in such a way
Brahmany adhyasyamānam sarvam kālatraye nāstītiniscayasya asti rūpadvayam ekam bādhātmakam aparam adhyasyamānatvam; tatra adhyasy amănatvena rūpeņa sva-vişayatvam; bādhatvena visayitvam iti nātmāśraya ity arthaḥ tathā ca nādvaita-kşatiḥ. Compare also Bhāmati on Adhyāsa-bhāsya. Nānă Dikşita seems to have borrowed his whole argument from the Bhāmatī. See his commentary on the Siddhānta-muktūvali. The Pandit, 1890, p. 108.
This idea, however, is not by any means a new contribution of Prakāśānanda. Thus Citsukha writes the same thing in his Tattva-dipikā (also called Pratyak-tatt
