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SANKHYA-YOGA ing image may not, and generally is not, an exact copy of the former. It is in this power of meddling with the object which the buddhi possesses that we have to seek for the source of error. But the power only emphasizes one aspect rather than another of what is given and does not add any new feature to it. In other words, the activity which the buddhi exercises is selective, the theory being that only so much of the nature of an object is known as is in kinship with the perceiver's mood at the time. Like only appeals to like. This alters very much the complexion of the resulting error. It is one of omission and not of commission as in the Nyāya-Vaišeşika. It is right so far as it goes; only it does not go sufficiently far. To get at the true nature of the object, we have accordingly to supplement our personal view by taking into consideration all other possible views of it. The doctrine admits, like Jainism (p. 159), that such comprehensive knowledge is possible, but it can be attained only when the buddhi is purified by continuous self-discipline, so that generally speaking what we perceive is only partially true. Incompleteness is a common deficiency of our knowledge, and much of the evil in life is to be traced to viewing it as complete. Two people may disagree about an object though both may be right in part, because each is obsessed by the idea that he is in possession of the whole truth about it. There is also another deficiency characterizing all knowledge excepting only that of a 'freed man' or jīvan-mukta. As neither the buddhi by itself, nor the self by itself can, according to the system, be the conscious subject, we have to seek for it, as has already been pointed out, in the two together, and no experience is possible until we mistake them for one, or to be more correct, we fail to notice that there are two factors constituting it. This failure, termed aviveka or non-discrimination, which again is an error only in a negative sense, is a pre-condition of all experience. It leads to a fatal confusion
Compare the illustration of one and the same damsel appearing differently to different persons, given in STK. st. 13.
See STK. st. 4, where such knowledge is described as ärşam jñānam. Cf. YS, i. 48. 3 For the use of this term or its equivalents see STK. st. 2, 21, 66, etc.
