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SATYASASANA-PARIKSA
knowledge? It is felt beyond the shadow of a doubt that our erroneous perception of shell as the silver is cancelled and corrected by knowledge of the shell in its true character. Our knowledge of shell is attended with negative judgment 'It is not silver'. This shows that there is opposition between knowledge and error which is nothing but a species of nescience. This has puzzled many a respectable philosopher and it has been seriously asserted that the Vedāntist is guilty of self-contradiction. True pure consciousness is an eternal and transcendental entity. As regards nescience, it is also asserted by the Vedāntist to be associated with the Absolute Consciousness which is pure and transcendental and undetermined by objective reference. There can be no difference in transcendental consciousness. But the difference of one consciousness from another is possible when it is made specific and particularized by objective reference, in other words, when it is possessed of a specific content and is called knowledge. Knowledge is consciousness in its essence, but it is different as a specific determination is froin the genus. The opposition of error is with knowledge and not with pure transcendental consciousness which is rather the proof of it. Error is also a cognition with a distinct content and it is cancelled only by a cognition with an opposite content with reference to the same situation. It is the true cognition which cancels the false cognition. The true cognition is here called knowledge, and the false cognition error. The opposition only holds between them.
It has been argued by the opponent of the monist that there can be no nescience in the Absolute because of the a priori opposition between consciousness and nescience. But the opposition is not a priori, and so the argument has no validity. The very fact that we are conscious of nescience shows that there is no opposition between them. But though a felt fact and uncaused entity existing concurrently with the Absolute, nescience is not regauded as an eternal verity like the Absolute Brahman, because it is liable to be concelled and corrected by the unerring realization of the nature of the self as identical with the Absolute. It has been shown that nescience is destroyed by knowledge from the example of common error and its correction. The Vedāntist deduces from the fact the conclusion that nescience is not a reality in the true sense of the term. A reality is not capable of death or destruction. Nescience being liable to extinction cannot be regarded as a co-ordinate reality. But though not a reality, its actual existence is a felt fact and so cannot be denied without self-contradiction. The denial of nescience as well as its assertion is possible only within the limitation of nescience, because they are all judgments and as
such have a dualistic reference. Of course, there can be no real relation between - the Absolute and nescience. The Absolute is unattached and unrelated to
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