A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 756 pages of information about A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1.

A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 756 pages of information about A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1.

The subject can be conceived in three forms:  firstly as the atman, the one highest reality, secondly as jiva or the atman as limited by its psychosis, when the psychosis is not differentiated from the atman, but atman is regarded as identical with the psychosis thus appearing as a living and knowing being, as jivasak@si or perceiving consciousness, or the aspect in which the jiva comprehends, knows, or experiences; thirdly the anta@hkara@na psychosis or mind which is an inner centre or bundle of avidya manifestations, just as the outer world objects are exterior centres of avidya phenomena or objective entities.  The anta@hkara@na is not only the avidya capable of supplying all forms to our present experiences, but it also contains all the tendencies and modes of past impressions of experience in this life or in past lives.  The anta@hkara@na is always turning the various avidya modes of it into the jivasak@si (jiva in its aspect as illuminating mental states), and these are also immediately manifested, made known, and transformed into experience.  These avidya states of the anta@hkara@na are called its v@rttis or states.  The specific peculiarity of the v@rttiajnanas is this that only in these forms can they be superimposed upon pure consciousness, and thus be interpreted as states of consciousness and have their indefiniteness or cover removed.  The

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forms of ajnana remain as indefinite and hidden or veiled only so long as they do not come into relation to these v@rttis of anta@hkara@na, for the ajnana can be destroyed by the cit only in the form of a v@rtti, while in all other forms the ajnana veils the cit from manifestation.  The removal of ajnana-v@rttis of the anta@hkara@na or the manifestation of v@rtti-jnana is nothing but this, that the anta@hkara@na states of avidya are the only states of ajnana which can be superimposed upon the self-luminous atman (adhyasa, false attribution).  The objective world consists of the avidya phenomena with the self as its background.  Its objectivity consists in this that avidya in this form cannot be superimposed on the self-luminous cit but exists only as veiling the cit.  These avidya phenomena may be regarded as many and diverse, but in all these forms they serve only to veil the cit and are beyond consciousness.  It is only when they come in contact with the avidya phenomena as anta@hkara@na states that they coalesce with the avidya states and render themselves objects of consciousness or have their veil of avara@na removed.  It is thus assumed that in ordinary perceptions of objects such as jug, etc. the anta@hkara@na goes out of the man’s body (s’ariramadhyat) and coming in touch with the jug becomes transformed into the same form, and as soon as this transformation takes place the cit which is always steadily shining illuminates the jug-form or the jug.  The jug phenomena in the objective world could not be manifested (though these were taking place on the background of

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A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.