Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/488

 47 2 The Saizkara School of Vedanta [CH. addition. All our uncontradicted knowledge of the objects of the external world should be regarded as right knowledge until the absolute is realized. When the antal:J.karal)a (mind) comes in contact with the external objects through the senses and becomes transformed as it were into their forms, it is said that the antal:J.karal)a has been transformed into a state (vr tti ) 1. As soon as the antal:J.ka- ral).a has assumed the shape or form of the object of its know- ledge, the ignorance (ajiliina) with reference to that object is removed, and thereupon the steady light of the pure conscious- ness (ei!) shows the object which was so long hidden by ignorance. The appearance or the perception of an object is thus the self-shining of the cit through a vrtti of a form resembling an object of knowledge. This therefore pre-sup- poses that by the action of ajiiana, pure consciousness or being is in a state of diverse kinds of modifications. In spite of the cit underlying all this diversified objective world which is but the transformation of ignorance (ajfiana), the former cannot manifest itself by itself, for the creations being of ignorance they are but sustained by modifications of ignorance. The diversified objects of the world are but transformations of the principle of ajilana which is neither real nor unreal. It is the nature of ajfiana that it veils its own creations. .Thus on each of the objects created by the ajiiana by its creating (vikepa) capacity there is a veil by its veiling (iivara?w) capacity. But when any object comes in direct touch with antal:1karal)a through the senses the antal:J.karal)a becomes transformed into the form of the object, and this leads to the removal of the veil on that particular ajfiana form-the object, and as the self- shining cit is shining through the particular ajfiana state, we have what is called the perception of the thing. Though there is in reality no such distinction as the inner and the outer yet the ajfiana has created such illusory distinctions as individual souls and the external world of objects the distinctions of time, space, 1 Vediinta does not regard manas (mind) as a sense (indriya). The same antaJ:l- karal)a, according to its diverse functions, is called manas, buddhi, ahal}1kara, and citta. In its functions as doubt it is called manas, as originating definite cognitions it is called Luddhi. As presenting the notion of an ego in consciousness ahal}1kiira, and as producing memory citta. These four rcpresent the different modifications or states (vrtti) of the same entity (which in itself is but a special kind of modification of ajfiana as antaJ:lkaral}a).