Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/490

 474 The Salikara School of Vedanta [CH. kevalavyat£reki (by universal agreement in absence). Vedanta advocates three premisses) viz. (I) pratiJiia (the hill is fiery); (2) Il£tu (because it has smoke) and (3) d.rs!iillta (as in the kitchen) instead of the fi ve propositions that N ya ya maintained 1. Since one case of concomitance is regarded by Vedanta as being sufficient for making an inference it holds that seeing the one case of appearance (silver in the conch-shell) to be false, we can in fer that all things (except Brahman) are false (Brah- mabh£1l1ta1Jl sarva1ll m£thyii Brahmabhinllatviit yedevam tadevam yatllii suktirfipyam). First premiss (pratiJ11ii) all else excepting Brahman is false; second premiss (hetu) since all is different from Brahman; third premiss (dr!ii1lta) whatever is so is so as the silver in the conch 2. Atman, Jiva, Isvara, Ekajivavada and Drtisrtivada. We have many times spoken of truth or reality as self- luminous (svaYa1!IPrakiisa). But what does this mean? Vedanta defines it as that which is never the object of a knowing act but is yet immediate and direct with us (avedyatve sati aparokavya- vahiirayogyatvam). Self-luminosity thus means the capacity of being ever present in all our acts of consciousness without in any way being an object of consciousness. Whenever anything is described as an object of consciousness, its character as constitu- ting its knowability is a quality, which mayor may not be present in it, or may be present at one time and absent at another. This makes it dependent on some other such entity which can produce it or manifest it. Pure consciousness differs from all its objects in this that it is never dependent on anything else for its manifestation) but manifests all other bjects such as the jug, the cloth, etc. If consciousness should require another conscious- ness to manifest it, then that might again require another, and that another, and so on ad £lljillitu1Jl (allavasthii). If conscious- ness did not manifest itself at the time of the object-manifestation, then even on seeing or knowing a thing one might doubt if he had seen or known it. It is thus to be admitted that conscious- ness (allltbhiUi) manifests itself and thereby maintains the ap- ) Vedanta would have either pratijfia, hetu and udaharaQa, or udaharaQa, upanaya and nigamana, and not all the five of Nyaya, viz. pratiji'ia, hetu, udaharaQa, upanaya and nigamana. 2 Vedantic notions of the pramaQa of upamana, arthapatti, sabda and anupalaLdhi, being similar to the mimaT!lSa view, do not require to be treated here separately.