________________
360 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY not cease to be even in deep sleep. It is individual and determinate, being defined by reference to the particular internal organ with which for the time being it seems associated. It is accordingly termed jīva-sākşin, What comes within the range of one sākşin--through the medium of its own antahkarana in the waking and dream states and through avidyā in deep sleep-is not necessarily within the experience of other sāksins. But existent objects as a whole can be understood only as presented to some sākşin, for consistently with the eventually idealistic position of the Advaita there can be no reality outside what either knows or is known. This line of reasoning leads to the postulating of a cosmic sākşin or absolute consciousness (Isvara-sākşin) which sustains everything that is. It is, in reality, the ground of the whole universe and is, as we shall see more fully in the next section, the Brahman of the Advaita. It is designated svarūpajñāna or pure consciousness. The vstti-jñāna draws its breath and substance from it, and the whole complex of empirical or finite knowledge would be nowhere without the light of this absolute or infinite consciousness.
To sum up: Our analysis of experience has led us, on the one hand, to an infinite consciousness or absolute spirit (anubhūti or caitanya); and, on the other, to two realms of objects which, however, have no being apart from that spirit. We may deduce this principle from the nature of the sāksin as we have just done or from the nature of those realms of being. We may argue that just as the prātibhāsika reality points to a vyāvahārika one, the vyāvahārika in its turn does, to a pāramārthika reality. If an appearance lasts only as long as its jñāna lasts and the empirical persists ever afterwards, this higher reality is timeless. Thus we have altogether three orders of being of which two alone are related to time. The third, which is the same as the svarūpajñāna referred to above, is the Brahman of the Vedānta. The recognition of this higher reality reveals a new form of error. The one we have drawn attention to thus far is that in which a pratibhāsika object is superposed upon a vyāvahārika one. It is error as is familiarly known. But if error is illegitimate
1 VP. Pp. 102 ff.
