Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/42

 even be an indistinct manifestation of His altogether luminous and self-evident nature. In as much as it is possible for us to have an illusion without a really existing basis for it to be imposed upon, and without a positive misguiding cause for that illusion to be produced, the world-illusion does not necessarily prove a positive 'ignorance' (pp. 172-174.). Accordingly the avidyd of the Adwaitins cannot be proved by perception. It cannot be proved by logical inference either ; because the syllogism that is intended to prove this positive 'ignorance' is also seen to prove the other unacceptable ignorance, and because also the illustrative example found in the body oj the syllogism is defective. Moreover, there are faultless counter-syllogistic statements which go to shew that every one of the Ad wait ins predications about his avidyd is wrong and untenable. The predication, that this positive avidyd is capable of being removed by knowledge, cannot be maintained on the analogy of fear and other such positive emotions disappearing as soon as it is known that they are due to a false cause ; because the positive emotion here is not destroyed by a subsequent stultifying knowledge, but disappears of itself on account of its own transitoriness. Therefore the logical process of inference also cannot establish that f ignorance ' which has the nature of a positive entity (pp. 174-179.). The hypothesis of mdyd is next taken into consideration in relation with the five theories of perception known to Indian philosophy. Things become manifest to consciousness through perception, and their manifestation may either correspond completely to the reality or it may not. Thus all the five theories of perception get reduced into two that according to which perception presents to consciousness the thing as it is, and that again according to which perception presents tO