Book Title: Satapatha Bramhana Part 05
Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford


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Page 1317
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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 1.
109
know myself'), become the object of witnessing Consciousness ?—There is no difficulty here, we reply. All things whatsoever are objects of Consciousness, either as things known or as things not known. But while the mediation of the means of knowledge is required in the case of all those things which, as being non-intelligent (gada), can be proved only in so far as being objects known (through some means of knowledge), such mediation is not required in the case of the intelligent (agada) inner Self which proves itself. Consciousness of Nescience is thus possible in all cases (including the case I do not know myself'), since witnessing Consciousness always gives definition to Nescience.---From all this it follows that, through Perception confirmed by Reasoning, we apprehend Nescience as a positive entity. This Nescience, viewed as a positive entity, is also proved by Inference-viz. in the following form: All knowledge established by one of the different means of proof is preceded by something else, which is different from the mere antecedent non-existence of knowledge; which hides the object of knowledge; which is terminated by knowledge; and which exists in the same place as knowledge :--because knowledge possesses the property of illumining things not illumined before ;-just as the light of a lamp lit in the dark illumines things.- Nor must you object to this inference on the ground that darkness is not a substance, but rather the mere absence of light, or else the absence of visual perception of form and colour, and that hence darkness cannot be brought forward as a similar instance proving Nescience to be a positive entity. For that Darkness must be considered a positive substance follows, firstly, from its being more or less dense, and secondly, from its being perceived as having colour
To all this we make the following reply. Neither Perception alone, nor Perception aided by Reasoning, reveals to us a positive entity, Nescience, as implied in judgments such as 'I am non-knowing,' 'I know neither myself nor others. The contradiction which was urged above against the view of non-knowledge being the antecedent nonexistence of knowledge, presents itself equally in connexion
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