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PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
[CH.
the image of the latter. This reflection at once illumines the mental modification and this illumination is knowledge. The cognition of an object is thus equivalent to the illumination of the mental modification called vṛtti. This cognition is at once objective and subjective and is a unitary act. It may express itself as 'This is pen' and 'I know the pen' according as the emphasis is put on the reflection or the mental modification. According to Vijñānabhikṣu, who quotes texts from the Purānas and ancient authority in support, knowledge is possible only through mental modification which acts rather as the medium. Knowledge of an external object is possible if the mind is transformed into a structural likeness of it. This mental modification is by itself blind and unknowing. It becomes a cognition when it is reflected on the puruşa (spirit). The objective judgment e.g. 'This is pen' takes place when the mental modification is imaged in the purusa. The puruşa is the locus of the cognition. As for the subjective cognition or self-consciousness 'I know the pen' it is a different cognitive act. According to the epistemological postulate a thing can be known if the buddhi is transformed into its shape. The same rule applies to purusa also. Puruşa or the self, in order to be known, must induce a structural modification in the buddhi. This modification of the buddhi after the pattern of the puruşa is then imaged in the self and selfcognition, that is, the subjective judgment 'I know the pen' takes place. The locus of cognition is always the purusa as it is the locus of the image of the mental modification. So according to Vijñānabhikṣu the objective cognition and the subjective cognition are numerically two different acts and the mental modifications are also two. To sum up, Vacaspati's theory is that both for the subjective and the objective cognition one mental modification is enough and the cognition takes place always in the mind. It is the spiritual illumination of the mental modification by the reflection of the spirit in it that constitutes cognition. Vijñānabhikṣu, like the Naiyāyika, thinks that the cognition of the subject and that of the object are two different acts, for which there are two different mental modifications. The cognition is not the illumination of the mental change by the imaging of the spirit upon it as Vacaspati holds. It is when the mental modification is imaged in the spirit that cognition takes place. The determination of the cognition as of an object or of the subject, that is, the purusa, is due to the nature of the object. If the object be an external entity it is an objective cognition. If it be the subject, it is subjective. The modus operandi is the same. The mind must be modified into the shape and form of the object and this modification must be imaged in the puruşa or the self. The cognition always takes place in the purusa, whether the object of it is puruşa or other than puruşșa. There is no departure from the rule that the content of
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