Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/498

 4 82 The Sa1ikara School 0/ Vedanta [CH. translucent as it were by its own translucence, removs the ajfiana which was veiling the external self-luminous cit and reveals the object phenomena by the very union of the cit as. reflected through it and the cit as underlying the object phenomena. The pratyak!?a-prama or right knowledge by perception is the cit, the pure consciousness, reflected through the vftti and identical with the cit as the background of the object phenomena revealed by it. From the relative point of view we may thus distinguish three consciousnesses: (I) consciousness as the background of objec- tive pheI}omena, (2) consciousness as the background of the jlva or pramata, the individual, (3) consciousness reflected in the vftti of the antal).karat:1a; when these three unite perception is effected. Prama or right knowledge means in Vedanta the acquire- ment of such new knowledge as has not been contradicted by experience (abiid/Lita). There is thus no absolute definition of truth. A knowledge acquired can be said to be true only so long as it is not contradicted. Thus the world appearance though it is very true now, may be rendered false, when this is contradicted by right knowledge of Brahman as the one reality. Thus the. knowledge of the world appearance is true now, but not true absolutely. The only absolute truth is the pure consciousness which is never contradicted in any experience at any time. The truth of our world-knowledge is thus to be tested by finding out whether it will be contradicted at any stage of world experience or not. That which is not contradicted by later experience is to be regarded as true, for all world knowledge as a whole will be contradicted when Brahma-knowledge is realized. The inner experiences of pleasure and pain also are gene- rated by a false identification of antal)karaI)a transformations as pleasure or pain with the self, by virtue of which are gene- rated the perceptions, " I am happy," or "I am sorry." In con- tinuous perception of anything for a certain time as an object or as pleasure, etc. the mental state or vrtti is said to last in the same way all the while so long as any other new form is not taken up by the antal).karaI.1a for the acquirement of any new knowledge. In such cases "vhen I infer that there is fire on the hill that I see, the hill is an object of perception, for the antal)- karaI.1 a vrui is one with it, but that there is fire in it is a matter of inference, for the antal.1karal.1a vrUi cannot be in touch with the fire; so in the same experience there may be two modes of