________________
OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
explanation of the second element also is practically the same as before. Though not given here and now, the silver must have been experienced before; for otherwise it could not at all have been fancied in the shell. The difference. between the two views is that while, according to akhyāti, error is due to a losing sight of the fact that the presentative and the representative factors stand apart unrelated (asamsargāgraha), here in viparita-khyāti it is ascribed to a wrong synthesis of them (samsargagraha). In the former case error, so far as that term is applicable at all, is due to omission because it only fails to grasp some relevant part of what is given. Hence its discovery, when it takes place, does not mean the discarding of any feature previously cognized. In the latter, the error becomes one of commission, for it includes as its content more than there is warrant for in the reality that is presented. In other words, illusion is here explained as unitary knowledge instead of as two jñānas. The subject and predicate elements consequently seem related in it, while they are not so in reality. Similarly in the case of the red crystal, the two relata, viz. the crystal and the redness, are actually given; but while they are not unified in fact, they appear so in error. As a consequence the redness of the flower, instead of standing apart, shows itself in the crystal and makes it appear differently (viparita) from what it is. This view is no doubt more in accord than the previous one with experience which points to the object of illusion as a synthetic whole, but epistemologically it presents a difficulty, viz. the inclusion of an ideal element within the content of knowledge. However unconvincing the akhyāti view may be, it is true to its realistic postulate in admitting no subjective element whatsoever. Knowledge may not be adequate to the given reality, but it never goes
316
This, by the way, accounts for the name viparita-khyāti, which literally means 'appears as other.' See SV. p. 245, st. 117 and p. 312, st. 160 (com.). The Bhatta view is commonly identified with the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika one. There is no doubt much that is common between the two, but there are differences in matters of detail. The Bhāṭṭas do not, for example, recognize what is known as alaukikapratyakṣa which is essential to the Nyaya-Vaiseşika explanation of errors like 'shell-silver.'
