Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/478

 4 62 The Sankara School of Vedanta [CH. examined, and one cannot make any such assertion about them as that they are or that they are not. Such negative criticisms of our fundamental notions about the world-order were undertaken by Srlhar!?a and his commentator and follower Citsukha. It is im- possible within the limits of this chapter to give a complete account of their criticisms of our various notions of reality. I shall give here only one example. Let us take the examination of the notion of difference (bheda) from Khal(!allakha?l(!akhiidya. Four explanations are possible of the notion of difference: (I) the difference may be perceived as appearing in its own characteristics in our ex- perience (svariiPa-bheda) as Prabhakara thinks; (2) the'difference between two things is nothing but the absence of one in the other (allyollyiibhiiva), as some Naiyayikas and Bhat!as think; (3) dif- ference means divergence of characteristics (vaidharmya) as the Vaise!?ikas speak of it; (4) difference may' be a separate quality in itself like the pthaktva quality of Nyaya. Taking the first alternative, we see that it is said that the jug and the cloth represent in themselves by their very form and existence their mutual difference from each other. But if by perceiving the cloth we perceive only its difference from the jug as the charac- teristic of the cloth, then the jug also must have penetrated into the form of the cloth, otherwise- how could we perceive in the cloth its characteristics as the difference from the jug? i.e. if difference is a thing which can be directly perceived by the senses, then as difference would naturally mean difference from something else, it is expected that something else such as jug, etc. from which the difference is perceived must also be perceived directly in the perception of the cloth. But if the perception of difference between two things has penetrated together in the same identical perception, then the self-contra- diction becomes apparent. Difference as an entity is not what we perceive in the cloth, for difference means difference from something else, and if that thing from which the difference is perceived is not perceived, then how can the difference as an entity be perceived? If it is said that the cloth itself represents its difference from the jug, and that this is indicated by the jug, then we may ask, what is the nature of the jug? I f the differeace from the cloth be the very nature of the jug, then the cloth itsc1f is also involved in the nature of the jug. If it is said that