Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/462

 44 6 The Sa1ikara School of Vedanta [CH. later experiences, whereas the illusion of world-appearance is never contradicted in this worldly stage and is thus called vyavaluir£ka (from vyavahiira, practice, i.e. that on which is based all our practical movements). So long as the right knowledge of the Brahman as the only reality does not dawn, the world-appearance runs on in an orderly manner uncontradicted by the accumulated experience of all men, and as such it must be held to be true. I t is only because there comes such a stage in which the world- appearance ceases to manifest itself that we have to say that from the ultimate and absolute point of view the world-appearance is false and unreal. As iigainst this doctrine of the Vedanta it is sometimes asked how, as we see the reality (sattva) before us, we can deny that it has truth. To this the Vedanta answers that the notion of reality cannot be derived from the senses, nor can it be defined as that which is the content of right knowledge, for we cannot have any conception of right knowledge without a conception of reality, and no conception of reality without a conception of right knowledge. The conception of reality com- prehends within it the notions of unalterability, absoluteness, and independence, which cannot be had directly from experience, as this gives only an appearance but cannot certify its truth. Judged from this point of view it will be evident that the true reality in all our experience is the one self-luminous flash of consciousness which is all through identical with itself in all its manifestations of appearance. Our present experience of the world-appearance cannot in any way guarantee that it will not be contradicted at some later stage. What really persists in all experience is the being (sat) and not its forms. This being that is associated with all our experience is not a universal genus nor merely the individual appearance of the moment, but it is the being, the truth which forms the substratum of all objective events and appearances (ekc/laiva sarvamtgatena sarvatra satpratiti(l). Things are not existent because they possess the genus of being (sat) as Nyaya supposes, but they are so because they are them- selves but appearance imposed on one identical being as the basis and ground of all experience. Being is thus said to be the basis (adhi!ltiilla) on which the illusions appear. This being is not different with different things but one in all appearances. Our perceptions of the world-appearance could have been taken as a guarantee of their reality, if the reality which is supposed of them