________________
392
OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
the objection that if the conch becomes actually yellow others also should find it so, the answer is given that the yellowness here is of too subtle a kind to be perceived by anyone who, unlike the person in question, has not followed it throughout its course of transmission. The explanation is no doubt arbitrary and unconvincing; but what our present purpose requires us to note is the spirit of persistent realism that underlies it, not its scientific correctness. The question will readily occur as to how dreams are to be accounted for. There at least we seem to have experience without corresponding objects existing at the time. The explanation once again is arbitrary and it is stated, now on the authority of the Upanisads, that objects like the elephant seen in a dream are not subjective but are present there at the time. 'They are created by the supreme Person (parama-purusa),' says Rāmānuja,3 and adds that the reason for creating such unique things is the same as in the case of objects of the waking state, viz. the providing of suitable means for the individual to experience pain or pleasure according to his past karma. 'He creates these objects, which are special to each jiva and last only as long as they are experienced, in order that it may reap the fruits appropriate to the extremely minor deeds of virtue and vice it has done. '4
It is instructive to find out the significance of this twofold explanation. The yellow-conch and the dream-elephant are objects solely of individual experience; and though not unreal they last only as long as the illusion lasts and can, in the nature of the case, be testified to only by the person that sees them. The illusion of the mirage or the shell-silver also in a sense has reference to particular individuals; but the water and the silver perceived there by one, because they by hypothesis persist even after the illusion is over as actual parts of what is presented, are verifiable by all. This shows that Rāmānuja distinguishes two classes of objects one which is cognized by all or many and may
The analogy is here adduced of a small bird soaring in the sky which he, that has followed its course from the moment it began to fly, is able to spot easily but not others. Br. Up. IV. iii. 10. 3 SB. III. ii. 3. 4 SB. III. ii. 5.
