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III. II]
AVIDYĀ IN THE YOGA SCHOOL
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seemingly identified with the buddhi and the buddhi becomes identified with the spirit. This mutual identification is responsible for the intelligization of the unintelligent changes and for their being not felt as distinct. Thus as a witness of the world process as presented by the buddhi, the purușa appears to have a knowledge-modification (jñānauịtti) in common with the buddhi. And this knowledgemodification is nothing but the buddhi-modification as intelligized by consciousness of the purusa and has clearly these two elements as its constituents: (1) the buddhi-modification, and (2) the apparently transferred consciousness. The second element of 'apparently transferred consciousness' has been interpreted by the commentators as the reflection of the puruşa. Thus commenting upon the passage 'The spirit (purusa) is the witness of the buddhi",2 Vācaspati says 'The spirit's witnessing of the buddhi (buddhipratisarveditvam) is nothing but the transmission of the image of the spirit to the buddhi-mirror.'3 Vijñānabhikṣu, however, holds a radically different view. Let us now make a critical estimate of the Yoga epistemology of perception, which is necessary for the understanding of the problem of bondage and consequent emancipation from it.
The epistemology of perception of the Sānkhya-Yoga school is based upon a theory which has been borrowed by the Vivarana School of Sārkara Vedānta almost in toto. It is the direct antithesis of the theories sponsored by the Naiyāyikas and the Jainas. The SānkhyaYoga view may be called the representative theory of perception in contradistinction to the presentative theory of the latter who do not believe that the object is known through the medium of an There is, however, no inherent improbability in the buddhi being transformed into a structural form after the pattern of the object, because the buddhi or the mind-stuff is after all a material thing like the external object of cognition. The theory postulates that nothing can be known without a similar transformation of the mind ; in other words, the mind can know its own modification directly and immediately and through this the object which is the pattern. According to Vācaspati the modus operandi is rather simple. The buddhi or the mind becomes transformed into the likeness of the object with which it comes in contact. This likeness is called the vytti or modification or function. The vitti by itself cannot make the object known since it is as blind and unknowing as the material object. The real illumination takes place when the light of the spirit falls upon it. The vrtti is almost as transparent as the spirit and as such the former is capable of catching
1 Cf. YD, I. 4; III. 35 ; also Bhāsya thereon. 2 sa puruso buddheḥ pratisamvedi-Bhāsya, YD, II. 20.
3 buddhi-darpane puruşa-pratibimba-sankrāntir eva buddhipratisarveditvam pumsan.
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