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: KNOWLEDGE OF KNOWLEDGĖ
. For the Upanişads, the self is self-luminous and so it knows others as well as itself.80 According to the Vedānta, know. ledge is of the nature of ultimate reality; it is itself its own light. For the Buddhists of Yogācāra school, there is nothing other than cognition.31
Among the self-revelatorists, the Jaina occupies a middle position between the Advaitins on the one hand and the Buddhists on the other, the former elevating knowledge to the extent of making it the ultimate transcendental reality, while the latter reducing it to an unbroken series of momentary perceptions.
It would be interesting to note the intimate connection between a system's metaphysics of the soul, and its position about the knowledge of knowledge. Those who accept the reality of things other than the soul, also regard the self as revelatory of those other things, besides being self-revelatory. They generally regard the relation between the soul and its knowledge to be one of either identity or identity-in-difference. The nature of ātman according to the Yogācāra Buddhist, the Jainas, Sānkhyas, Yogins, Sankara, Rāmānuja and other Vedā. ntins, is self-perceptible. Kumărila is the only exception to whom self is self-revelatory inspite of the fact, for him, knowledge is non-perceptible. The Nyāya-Vaiseșikas and the Prābhā. karas, who hold that the self is not self-revelatory also recog. nise knowledge to be distinct from ātman, even when they admit the self-revelatory character of knowledge. 33
The Sānkhya-Yogins would like to substitute the pure consciousness or the essence of puruşa for this unknownness of
30 Kath. Up., V. 15. 31 Dharmakirti, Nya ya-bindu, 1. 10. 32 The purpose of the Mimāṁsakas in advocating the theory of know.
ledge as imperceptible (parokşa) is obvious. They are uncompromising scripturalists. The knowledge of merit, demerit and other super-normal things are derived from the Vedas and Vedas alone. This knowledge is non-sensuous and therefore it must be indirect and imperceptible.
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