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OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
between the puruşa and the buddhi in which the characteristics of each are ascribed to the other and we talk of the buddhi as knowing and of the puruşa as acting. It is the removal of this error, we may add by the way, through discrimination (viveka) between the two factors constituting the empirical self that the doctrine holds to be the chief aim of life.
Error may thus be of two kinds: (i) where only one object is involved, it is mistaking a part for the whole; and (ii) where two objects are involved, it is overlooking the distinction between them and so virtually identifying them with each other. The two kinds can be reduced to the same form, for the second may be looked upon as a particular case of the first. Not knowing the puruşa or the buddhi completely we confound the one with the other; and when complete knowledge of them is attained the mistake will of itself disappear so that it also, like the first, may be said to result from incomplete knowledge. The two instances of incorrect knowledge given above may together be described as 'metaphysical error.' They are what vitiate all experience, and there is no escape from it until jivan-mukti is achieved. But apart from this basic error of which man is not commonly aware, there is another with which he is quite familiar. Thus a white crystal appears red when it is placed by the side of a red flower; and we sometimes think we see silver when closer scrutiny discovers it to be only shell. Their explanation is similar: In the case of the first, the red flower as well as the white crystal is given, and it is because we lose sight of the fact that they are two that we mistake the colour of the crystal. It is non-discrimination (aviveka) as in the case of the puruşa and the buddhi, the confusion between which is the cause of empirical life. The moment we realize that there is the flower in addition to the crystal, the error vanishes. In the case of the second, only one object, viz. shell, is presented and our error is owing to our stopping short at grasping its features which it has in common with silver for which it is mistaken. That is, it is incomplete knowledge that gives rise to error here, as in the case of the other variety of what we have termed 'metaphysical error.' Though thus
