world-appearance disappears once for all. No intermediate link is necessary to effect it, no mechanical dissociation of buddhi or manas, but just as by finding out the glittering piece to be a conchshell the illusory perception of silver is destroyed, so this illusory perception of world-appearance is also destroyed by a true knowledge of the reality, the Brahman. The Upaniṣads held that reality or truth was one, and there was "no many" anywhere, and Śankara explained it by adding that the "many" was merely an illusion, and hence did not exist in reality and was bound to disappear when the truth was known. The world-appearance is māyā (illusion). This is what Śankara emphasizes in expounding his constructive system of the Upanisad doctrine. The question is sometimes asked, how the māyā becomes associated with Brahman. But Vedanta thinks this question illegitimate, for this association did not begin in time either with reference to the cosmos or with reference to individual persons. In fact there is no real association, for the creation of illusion does not affect the unchangeable truth. Māyā or illusion is no real entity, it is only false knowledge (avidyā) that makes the appearance, which vanishes when the reality is grasped and found. Māyā or avidyā has an apparent existence only so long as it lasts, but the moment the truth is known it is dissolved. It is not a real entity in association with which a real world-appearance has been brought into permanent existence, for it only has existence so long as we are deluded by it (prātītika-sattā). Māyā therefore is a category which baffles the ordinary logical division of existence and non-existence and the principle of excluded middle. For the māyā can neither be said to be "is" nor "is not" (tattvānyatvābhyām anirvacaniya). It cannot be said that such a logical category does not exist, for all our dream and illusory cognitions demonstrate it to us. They exist as they are perceived, but they do not exist since they have no other independent existence than the fact of their perception. If it has any creative function, that function is as illusive as its own nature, for the creation only lasts so long as the error lasts. Brahman, the truth, is not in any way sullied or affected by association with māyā, for there can be no association of the real with the empty, the māyā, the illusory. It is no real association but a mere appearance. In what sense is the world-appearance false? The world is said to be false-a mere product of māyā. The falsehood of this world-appearance has been explained as involved in the category of the indefinite which is neither sat "is" nor asat "is not." Here the opposition of the "is" and "is not" is solved by the category of time. The world-appearance is “is not," since it does not continue to manifest itself in all times, and has its manifestation up to the moment that the right knowledge dawns. It is not therefore "is not" in the sense that a "castle in the air" or a hare's horn is "is not," for these are called tuccha, the absolutely non-existent. The world-appearance is said to be "is" or existing, since it appears to be so for the time the state of ignorance persists in us. Since it exists for a time it is sat (is), but since it does not exist for all times it is asat (is not). This is the appearance, the falsehood of the world-appearance ( jagatprapañca) that it is neither sat nor asat in an absolute sense. Or rather it may also be said in another way that the falsehood of the world-appearance consists in this, that though it appears to be the reality or an expression or manifestation of the reality, the being, sat, yet when the reality is once rightly comprehended, it will be manifest that the world never existed, does not exist, and will never exist again. This is just what we find in an illusory perception; when once the truth is found out that it is a conchshell, we say that the silver, though it appeared at the time of illusory perception to be what we saw before us as "this" (this is silver), yet it never existed before, does not now exist, and will never exist again. In the case of the illusory perception of silver, the "this" (pointing to a thing before me) appeared as silver; in the case of the world-appearance, it is the being (sat), the Brahman, that appears as the world; but as in the case when the "this" before us is found to be a piece of conch-shell, the silver is at once dismissed as having had no existence in the "this" before us, so when the Brahman, the being, the reality, is once directly realized, the conviction comes that the world never existed. The negation of the world-appearance however has no separate existence other than the comprehension of the identity of the real. The fact that the real is realized is the same as that the world-appearance is negated. The negation here involved refers both to the thing negated (the world-appearance) and the world negation itself, and hence it cannot be contended that when the conviction of the negation of the world is also regarded as false (for if the negation is not false then it remains as an entity different from Brahman and hence the unqualified monism fails), then this reinstates the reality of the world-appearance; for negation of the world-appearance is as much false as the world-appearance itself, and hence on the realization of the truth the negative thesis, that the world-appearance does not exist, includes the negation also as a manifestation of world-appearance, and hence the only thing left is the realized identity of the truth, the being. The peculiarity of this illusion of world-appearance is this, that it appears as consistent with or inlaid in the being (sat) though it is not there. This of course is dissolved when right knowledge dawns. This indeed brings home to us the truth that the worldappearance is an appearance which is different from what we know as real (sadvilakṣaṇa); for the real is known to us as that which is proved by the pramāņas, and which will never again be falsified by later experience or other means of proof. A thing is said to be true only so long as it is not contradicted; but since at the dawn of right knowledge this world-appearance will be found to be false and non-existing, it cannot be regarded as real'. Thus Brahman alone is true, and the world-appearance is false; falsehood and truth are not contrary entities such that the negation or the falsehood of falsehood will mean truth. The world-appearance is a whole and in referring to it the negation refers also to itself as a part of the world-appearance and hence not only is the positive world-appearance false, but the falsehood itself is also false; when the world-appearance is contradicted at the dawn of right knowledge, the falsehood itself is also contradicted. Brahman differs from all other things in this that it is selfluminous (svaprakāśa) and has no form; it cannot therefore be the object of any other consciousness that grasps it. All other things, ideas, emotions, etc., in contrast to it are called drsya (objects of consciousness), while it is the draṣṭā (the pure consciousness comprehending all objects). As soon as anything is comprehended as an expression of a mental state (vrtti), it is said to have a form and it becomes dṛśya, and this is the characteristic of all objects of consciousness that they cannot reveal themselves apart from being manifested as objects of consciousness through a mental state. 1 See Advaitasıddhi, Mithyātvanirukti. Tualif Brahman also, so long as it is understood as a meaning of the Upanisad text, is not in its true nature; it is only when it shines Brak in forth as apart from the associations of any form that it is svaprakāśapan and draṣṭā. The knowledge of the pure Brahman is devoid of any form or mode. The notion of drśyatva (objectivity) carries with it also the notion of jaḍatva (materiality) or its nature as nonconsciousness (ajñānatva) and non-selfness (anātmatva) which consists in the want of self-luminosity of objects of consciousness. The relation of consciousness (jñāna) to its objects cannot be regarded as real but as mere illusory impositions, for as we shall see later, it is not possible to determine the relation between knowledge and its forms. Just as the silver-appearance of the conch-shell is not its own natural appearance, so the forms in which consciousness shows itself are not its own natural essence. In the state of emancipation when supreme bliss (ānanda) shines forth, the ananda is not an object or form of the illuminating consciousness, but it is the illumination itself. Whenever there is a form associated with consciousness, it is an extraneous illusory imposition on the pure consciousness. These forms are different from the essence of consciousness, not only in this that they depend on consciousness for their expression and are themselves but objects of consciousness, but also in this that they are all finite determinations (paricchinna), whereas consciousness, the abiding essence, is everywhere present without any limit whatsoever. The forms of the object such as cow, jug, etc. are limited in themselves in what they are, but through them all the pure being runs by virtue of which we say that the cow is, the jug is, the pot is. Apart from this pure being running through all the individual appearances, there is no other class (jati) such as cowness or jugness, but it is on this pure being that different individual forms are illusorily imposed (ghaṭādīkam sadarthekalpitam, pratyekam tadanubiddhatvena pratīyamānatvāt). So this world-appearance which is essentially different from the Brahman, the being which forms the material cause on which it is imposed, is false (upādānaniṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyogitvalakṣaṇamithyatvasiddhiḥ-as Citsukha has it). The nature of the world-appearance, phenomena. The world-appearance is not however so illusory as the perception of silver in the conch-shell, for the latter type of worldly illusions is called prātibhāsika, as they are contradicted by other reality later experiences, whereas the illusion of world-appearance is never contradicted in this worldly stage and is thus called vyavahārika (from vyavahāra, practice, i.e. that on which is based all our practical movements). So long as the right knowledge of the Brahman as the only reality does not dawn, the world-appearance runs on in an orderly manner uncontradicted by the accumulated experience of all men, and as such it must be held to be true. It is only because there comes such a stage in which the worldappearance ceases to manifest itself that we have to say that from the ultimate and absolute point of view the world-appearance is false and unreal. As against this doctrine of the Vedanta it is sometimes asked how, as we see the reality (sattva) before us, we can deny that it has truth. To this the Vedanta answers that the notion of reality cannot be derived from the senses, nor can it be defined as that which is the content of right knowledge, for we cannot have any conception of right knowledge without a conception of reality, and no conception of reality without a conception of right knowledge. The conception of reality comprehends within it the notions of unalterability, absoluteness, and independence, which cannot be had directly from experience, as this gives only an appearance but cannot certify its truth. Judged from this point of view it will be evident that the true reality in all our experience is the one self-luminous flash of consciousness which is all through identical with itself in all its manifestations of appearance. Our present experience of the world-appearance cannot in any way guarantee that it will not be contradicted at some later stage. What really persists in all experience is the being (sat) and not its forms. This being that is associated with all our experience is not a universal genus nor merely the individual appearance of the moment, but it is the being, the truth which forms the substratum of all objective events and appearances (ekenaiva sarvānugatena sarvatra satpratitiḥ). Things are not existent because they possess the genus of being (sat) as Nyāya supposes, but they are so because they are themselves but appearance imposed on one identical being as the basis and ground of all experience. Being is thus said to be the basis (adhisthāna) on which the illusions appear. This being is not different with different things but one in all appearances. Our perceptions of the world-appearance could have been taken as a guarantee of their reality, if the reality which is supposed of them |