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Kalidas Bhattacarya
without consciousness, and we have seen that a hypothesis of this type is entirely useless, As for the Ramanujist, he has not indeed held either that the substantive self is intrinsically without consciousness or that all consciousness is contingent. But he has distinguished between a type of consciousness which is intrinsic to the self and another which occasionally happens there and continues for a limited period of time But this Is only reminiscent of the distinction the Advaitin draws between pure subjectivity aud mental states The Ramanujist's intrinsic consciousness corresponds largely to the Advaitin's pure subjectivity and his contingent conscious to the latter's mental states His only point of departure is that for him mental states are themselves states of consciousness, which, however, we have just seen, is a wrong notion Mental states are not states of consciousness at all, whatever consciousness may be spoken of as having been there being only consciousness as undistinguishedly fused with them. The so-called contingent consciousness is not qualitatively of the same stuff with intrinsic consciousness It is because the Ramanujist has taken it as of the nature of consciousness that he calls it knowledge (jana) too, distinguished form intrinsic knowledge in being only attributive or secondary (dharmabhūta-jñāna) intr nsic knowledge being understood as constituting the very nature (svarupaj of the substantive self
The Nyaya Vaisesika thinker, otherwise, agreeing with the Ramanujist, differs with him sharply on this last point. He would never admit any intrinsic knowledge (consciousness) belonging to a substantive self the substantive self is, according to him, without knowledge, without consciousness. Yet, however, the difference is not as fundamental as it appears to be For dispite all else he has said he understands the sub. 'stantive self as, after all, intrinsically capable of possessing consciousness (knowledge) and in that sense he is even prepared to call it conscious (cetana), At least this capability is then the svarupa of that self Further, one could doubt if there is. no eternal intrinsic knowledge in at least one self, viz. God.
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