Sambodhi 1984 Vol 13 and 14

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, Ramesh S Betai, Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 97

92
E. A. Solomon
has said in his Brhadaranyakopanişad-Bhasya Varttika, by whatever method one could get an insight into the real self that method alone should be regarded as good and that becomes established. And thus the jiva comes to experience sarksdru being overpowered by the adjunct, and Isvara comes to have omniscience by virtue of the adjunct.23
Three theories became popular as accounting for the division of jiva and Isvara and explaining the process of cognition. Of these Pratibimbavāda is mainly assigned to Prakasatman, the pioneer of the Vivarana school; to Suraśvara goes the credit of propounding the Abhāsavada, and Vacaspati is credited with the Avacchedavada. In the Abhasavada, Cit as it is reflected and appears in the upadhi (whether avidya or the antahkarana) is regarded as something anirvacaniya being different from what could be called sentieni and what could be called insentient and so is unreal; and the Pure Consciousness is said to be bound through this Āblasa, while the Pure Consciousness is really unaffected. In the Pratibimbavada, Caitanya is reflected in Ajiana or in the antah karana, and this pratibimba is regarded as real inasmuch as it is consciousness on which the false attribute of being present in the upādhi (adjunct) and its impurities are superimposed. The pratibimba is non-different from the bimba as there is no causal complex for a fresh creation and the bimba could not enter the adjunct (mirror or the like); only the attribute of being located in the upadhi' is superimposed on it. Vācaspati regards consciousness as being limited (avacchinna) by Ajiāna or the antahkarana and so his theory is called Avacchedavada. In his view Caitanya which is the object of Ajilana is Isvara, and Caitanya which is the locus of ajitana is jiva; and the afflanas being many, fivas also are many. This can be directly derived from Vācaspati's own statements but it is difficult to understand how he is crcdited with the view that the phenomenal world is different with each jiva, for each jiva being conditioned by its own ajñina is the upädana of the world. If we feel that we see the same worldy objects as are seen by others it is only because of the extreme similarity of the objects seen by different people though the object seen by one is different from the object seen by another. Two persons may have their own illusions of rope-serpent and yet they could feel that they saw the same serpent. This is true of the objects of the mundane world also.24
Vacaspati could have stressed this point while commenting on Sankarácarya's refutation of the Vijñānavāda that there are no external obiects which become the object of our perceptions. On the contrary he has said that the external objects are already existent outside the