Bina Gupta - Cit Consciousness

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CIT
CONSCIOUSNESS
Bina Gupta
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
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ToSwati,
the actualization of
my dreams and more
Contents
Priface ix
l. Introduction 1
2. Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the Upanil?ads 15
3. The Objectivist Theory of Nyaya-Vaisel?ika
39
4. The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory 66
of Yogacara Buddhism
5. Subjectivist-Transcendental Theory
94
of Advaita Vedanta
6. Transformations of the Advaita Theory
139
of Consciousness
7. Comparative Assessment: Questions, 166
Criticisms, and Concluding Reflections
Abbreviations
185
Bibliography
187
Index
195
Preface
The book is an attempt to understand the conceptions of consciousness
in Indian philosophy. I became interested in this work, while working
on my book, The Disinterested Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedanta
PhenomenologyCNorthwestern University Press, 1998),which is primarily
devoted to Advaita Vedanta. I, however, should add that its focus is
chiefly, though not exclusively, on the Vivara.Q.a School of Advaita
Vedanta. It attempts to unfold the Advaita Vedanta phenomenology of
the levels of consciousness. An important part of this phenomenology
of consciousness is that, at a certain level, consciousness is simply a
witness to its own operations and divergent modes. My goal in The
Disinterested Witness was not to lay down the entire theory of
consciousness in Advaita Vedanta, but only a part of it, namely, the idea
of a consciousness or a level of consciousness which simply witnesses,
without getting involved in, the ongoing process of experience. So, I
call this phenomenology a 'fragment'. Soon after I completed this book,
I realized that the larger picture of' consciousness' in the entire spectrum
of Indian philosophy had yet to be worked out. Thus the transition to
the investigation of the general conception of consciousness seemed
natural and inevitable. Accordingly, the general spectrum of the theory
of consciousness is the focal point of this work.
Two additional factors inspired me to undertake this work. First, the
contemporary Western philosophical scene has generated a lot of
excitement and debates on the philosophical problems of consciousness.
Consciousness has been a continuing cornerstone of recent continental
philosophy. Husserlians have made it one of their central themes.
Heideggerians have challenged its centrality, and deconstructionists have
sought to deconstruct the metaphysics of presence on which
consciousness philosophies are based. Second, I was also inspired by
the new interest in 'consciousness research' by the brain sciences and
analytic thinkers. It seemed to me that these philosophers who are most
seriously engaged in thinking about consciousness may find the thoughts
x
Preface
of the Indian philosophers useful and interesting, even though they may
not accept these ideas in their entirety.
The Sanskrit term for consciousness is 'cit. I presume sceptics,
historicists, cultural relativists, and their kin would debate ad nauseum,
whether cit can really be translated as 'consciousness'. I do not believe
that there is anything like exact translation, nor do I believe that the
entire content of a concept is inaccessible to those who are outside of its
original home. 'Cit and' consciousness' have enough of common content
to warrant treating them as synonyms without any anxiety. I treat them so.
In reading this book, my readers must keep the following points in
mind. First, this book, like The Disinterested Witness, has not been written
from a historical perspective. My concern has been philosophical, better
yet, conceptual. Second, my interpretation is based upon my
understanding of the classical sources in Indian philosophy. In giving
these interpretations, I have tried to be faithful to the Indian tradition in
order to enable my readers to have an accurate and authentic
understanding of the various theories of consciousness. Third, I have
also made comparisons with Western theories, where I thought such
comparisons would be conducive to understanding the conceptions of
consciousness not only for my Western readers but also for the non-
Western readers. Fourth, my attempt in this work cannot be separated
from my own attempt to develop a theory of consciousness to my
satisfaction.
It hardly needs to be said that my theory of consciousness is Advaitic
. in its general features. I am convinced that no system of philosophy in
the West or the East has thought so deeply on the nature of consciousness
as the Vedantahas. This book clearly demonstrates that there exists an
amazing variety of the conceptions of consciousness in Indian philosophy.
These conceptions developed within a period of about 1500 years, and
contain very <l.rguments and counter-arguments that were
advanced by the defenders of each thesis and its opponents.
I need not also apologize or warn the readers of my Vedantic
proclivity. My philosophical concern, not only in this book, but in general,
has been to comprehend and interpret Vedantic thought and to assimilate
it into my own thinking as a philosopher. Non-dualistic Vedanta has
been for me an amazing case of a sublime metaphysical system, subtle
logical discursivity, and detailed phenomenological description. In this
book, I lOcate Advaita in the context of Indian philosophical discourse
from within which it arose and which in turn it enriched.
Preface xi
I am aware that there remain many philosophical questions about
consciousness in general and Indian thought in particular, which I have
. not answered to my satisfaction. The concluding chapter of this work
raises some of these questions and proVides some insights into how my
readers might proceed to answer them. Philosophy, as its practitioners
well know, is both an exhilarating and an arduous enterprise. In the
ancient discipline of darana, even to be able to take one new step
forward should be a matter of satisfaction, given that the philosophers
belonging to these darsanas not only thoroughly and rigorously
formulated and defended their own positions, but also criticized the
opponent's theses. If this work challenges my readers, and in so doing
proVides further impetus for research, I shall have succeeded in my efforts.
1
Introduction
Anybody mildly familiar with the contemporary philosophico-
psychological scene is well aware that recent times have produced a lot
of excitement and debate about the nature and function of consciousness.
Perhaps, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is no other phenomenon
besides consciousness that is more familiar and yet more elusive to any
theoretical account which would satisfy scholars of all persuasions. As
soon as one tries to give an account of consciousness within anyone
theory, one finds almost insuperable difficulties. The very idea of being
familiar with consciousness provides a testimony to its existence.
Augustine said of time that when one was not talking about it, one knew
what it was, but when asked about it, he knew no longer.! What Augustine
said about time is equally true of consciousness. It seems to be so ethereal,
intangible, and deceptive that when one tries to take hold of it, it escapes
one's grip.
Consciousness, as a subject of study, has had a roller coaster history.
There is no other phenomenon in the history of philosophy or science
for which the pendulum of recognition has swung to such extremes as it
has for consciousness. Whereas many metaphysicians have found in it
some clue to what they regard as the ultimate reality, natural scientists,
on the other hand, have found it difficult to accommodate it within their
scientific theories. After years of having been banished from scientific
discourse and concern, consciousness seems to have found a newly
respectable place among scientists and scientific philosophers during
the past two decades. While not too long ago, consciousness was regarded
by scientific philosophers as a mere epiphenomr:;non of matter-its
reduction regarded as achievable-today, many serious scientists are
looking for the origin and source of the phenomenon bf consciousness.
The attitude is now positive, more daring, less doctrinaire. These days,
there is an upsurge of interest in consciousness in many scientific
disciplines, for example, psychology, and the neurosciences. It is, under
these changed circumstances, helpful to look at the nature of the concerns
2
Cit: Consciousness
for consciousness in some of the oldest philosophical traditions of the
world, the Hindu and the Buddhist.
I
CONSCIOUSNESS IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Indian thought shows a deep and continuing concern for the nature and
function of consciousness (cit). The idea of consciousness or cit has
played an important role in the if not in the Vedas. Since the
time of the consciousness has been the fundamental concept
of Indian thought. Consciousness first searched for the proper object of
worship in a deity it sought for, to begin with, in the natural powers-
fire, air, water, sun, rain, cloud, etc., which also symbolized different
inner psychological powers, the powers of will, intellect, and moral
purity, for example. It neither recognized itself as that which is being
sought, nor recognized the double meaning, the external and the inner,
the physical and the psychological, with which its poetic expressions
played. This double path gave rise, on the one hand, to an elaborate
ritual of sacrifices and, on the other, to a profoundly expanding as well
as deepening inner experience of the inner self Catman). Two paths
opened up: the path of action (pravrtti), of rites and rituals (leading to a
structural scientificity of their own) and the path of non-action (nivrtti),
of contemplation on the nature of the self. Consciousness, which was
searching for the proper object of worship, now turns to itself, the inne"
principle, which becomes the proper object of worship, and
contemplation becomes worship.
The opposition between the inner and the outer deities, on the one
hand, and the self (as the one inner principle) on the other, is sought to
be reconciled by consciousness within itself, by proclaiming 'I am He,
You are that Being? and more metaphysically, the self is the absolute
being (brahman). The unity of the two, the self and the reality, resulted
in pure being, free from all determinations, indescribable by any concepts,
or describable only by negations,3 and symbolized by words such as
'Om'4 and by deities. Religious life, with its deities, rites, and practices,
receded to the background and retained only a symbolic significance.
The opposition between the two paths-one of action and the other
of non-action--came to be reconciled in the ethical ideal of 'non-action
in the midst of action'. The ethics of rites and rituals, of customary duties,
Introduction 3
though not denied, was brought under the sovereign power of
desirelessness, non-attachment and 'sense of equality' (samatva). But
the customary ethics, the Sittlichkeit(which included the distinctions of
caste, van:za) remained alien to this sovereign power; it could neither be
deduced from the supreme moral principle, nor could it be made
compatible with that principle. Sense of equality could not accommodate
the hierarchical distinctions. Some rituals were assigned a new symbolic
significance, but such hermeneutic appropriation always left a recalcitrant
remainder.
A new level of self-consciousness arose out of this challenge.
Buddhism rejected large segments of that Sittlichkeit, brought non-
attachment, without denying it, under the supreme virtue of' compassion'
(karnlJa), sought to achieve egolessness by dissolving the substantial
ego into a stream of consciousness consisting of arising and perishing,
tied together, not by an enduring substrate, but by a causal link and
inherited traces, traces of traces ad infinitum. The Buddhist theory of
consciousness itself developed through stages. In the absence of belief
in an external world, consciousness-always hyletic-was given the
power to objectify its inner representations which themselves arise by
way of awakened traces and under the influence of a beginningless
ignorance and the consequent 'desire' and 'craving'. In the course of
developing this theory, Yogacara Buddhism discovered the unconscious
depository of past traces (alaya). The Buddhists argued that freedom
from desire leads to the dissolution of traces, leading to knowing things
in their 'suchness', independently of all concepts and linguistic
constructions.
The Buddhist theory, by a dialectical logic, led to the Advaita Vedanta
theory of pure, undifferentiated, unchanging, eternal consciousness as
the self which manifests all things, on which beginningless ignorance
imposes the illusory names and forms of empirical world. A curious
puzzle arose: how can this eternal unchanging self harbour within its
being the ignorance Which conceals its true nature? Could not ignorance
be none other than the self's own creative energy, the power of endless
self-differentiation, but not a power of generating illusions? Various
schools of Vedanta developed these possibilities, but none exceeding
Abhinavagupta
5
and Sri Aurobindo in power. The latter two brought out
the intimate connection between consciousness and time, between
permanence and change, and between transcendence and immanence.
Did Advaita Vedanta always occupy the pre-eminent status in the
Indian intellectual life as it has at least since the beginning of the twentieth
4
Cit: Consciousness
century? Various .cultural influences account for the resurgence of Advaita.
Lately, there seems to be a tendency on the part of highly sophisticated
scientists and technologists to look for confinnation of Advaita in science.
Some physicists in particular find messages in quantum physics, which
seem to corroborate the Advaita thesis. Others find in Advaita a message
of unity of all religions and a tolerance of diversity. My attitude towards
such attempts is that they are based upon too hasty an inference and
reveal a lack of careful thinking. Quantum physics, on a charitable
idealistic interpretation, one may say, 'dematerializes' matter, but that
does not tantamount to a philosophy which regards pure, undifferentiated
consciousness alone as real. For quantum physics, the irreversible flow
of time is real, and Advaita Vedanta, in order to be able to account for all
phenomena, needs to have a theory of how-by what energy intrinsic
to itself-cit differentiates itself intQ discrete events. Not Satpkara"s
Advaita, but the Saivism of Abhinavagupta, it would seem, has the
required conceptual tools. Abhinavagupta' s philosophy of consciousness
is a form of non-dualism, and thus, it is, in many respects, close to
Satpkara's Advaita.
6
However, it is in Abhinavagupta's account, and not
in Sarpkara' s Advaita, one finds the identification of citwith energy (saktt)
and the identification of energy with time (kala). However, even with
these identifications, Abhinavagupta's theory of consciousness still
remains a transcendental theory. To be able to accommodate modern
science, and to be relevant to the needs of modern society, we need
some fundamental revisions of Vedanta. In this context, it seems to me,
Sri Aurobindo's integral Advaita may be more promising, which is
discussed in the sixth chapter of this work.
II
ETIMOLOGlCAL CONSIDERATIONS
Given that the nature and availability of a concept in a tradition cannot
be separated from the words by which the concept is expressed in that
tradition, I shall begin with a few remarks about the use of the Sanskrit
terms that express the notion of consciousness. The Sanskrit word for
consciousness is cit', in more modern languages, for example, in Hindi
and Bengali, it is caitanya. Two other terms worth noting in this context
are 'jiicma' and 'vijiiiina'. In earlier philosophical literature, especially
the both terms have been used synonymously with
Introduction 5
consciousness (although in different senses in later systematic writings).7
In this introduction, I shall not go into the nuances of the meanings of
these terms as reflected in their textual usages, a task that I intend to
undertake in the individual chapters ofthis work. Suffice it to say that in
this book, I shall use cit for consciousness and jiicma for specific
cognitions,
Vijiicma, as the etymology suggests, would then be a special kind
of jiiima, although the Buddhists use this term, particularly a variant of
it-vijiiapti-for all cognitions, It is worth noting that some philosophers,
especially the Naiyayikas, have used the word' buddhi' as synonymous
to both cit and jiicma, while others have regarded buddhi as a special
faculty of comprehension, In any case, consciousness and knowledge
are both distinguished from manas (generally translated as 'mind'), which
has been construed as the inner sense (antaqkara1!-a) in the Indian
systems of philosophy, It is worth noting that neither Western philosophy
nor Western psychology makes a clear distinction between 'mind',
'intellect', and 'consciousness', They generally use 'mind' and
'consciousness' synonymously, and construe' intellect' as an intellectual
faculty, better yet, activity of the mind, Among Western philosophers,
Kant's distinction between the inner sense, intellect, and consciousness
roughly approximates the distinction between 'manas', 'buddhi', and
'cif found in the Indian context,. Kant argues that whereas all mental
representations belong to the inner sense, the faculty of intellect
conceptualizes, and consciousness objectifies the raw materials of .
knowledge,
Given that a cognitive state is also a state of consciousness, it will be
imperative that in my discussion, I carefully distinguish between questions
of knowledge and questions of consciousness, The former, in a more
specific sense of jiicma, belongs to the theory of knowledge or
epistemology, and falls under the purview of prama1!-asastra, For the
latter, that is, citor consciousness, there seems to have been no specific
branch of philosophy" In Indian philosophy, either cit is identical with
the self or atman, ~ else the atman is reducible to a stream of
consciousness, In any case, cit finds its place among the proper themes
of metaphysics.
To offer a remark or two about the use of corresponding terms in
Western languages-the English word' consciousness' has no equivalent
in Greek. As a matter of fact, it is widely held that the Greeks did not
have a fully developed concept of consciousness and the Greek language
does not have a suitable word for it. The origin of the word goes back
6 Cit: Consciousness
perhaps to the Roman 'conscience', meaning 'the inner voice'. One
interesting feature of the word 'consciousness' is the occurrence of the
suffix '-ness', which seems to suggest an b s t r ~ c t noun or the property
'of being conscious'. The Sanskrit word does not have that sense, unless
one uses the word' caitanya'. The German' Bewusstsein' ends with the
suffix' sein', which does not have the same meaning as the English suffix
'ness' (which in German would be 'heif or 'keif). Sein rather means
'being', thus Bewusstsein would seem to mean 'being conscious'. On
the further implications of the contrast I shall not make any remark for
the present.
Before proceeding, it is worth noting that the word' consciousness'
has often been used among philosophers and psychologists in any of
three different meanings. In the widest sense, it is used to stand for all
mental states, cognitive, affective, and conative. In this sense, perceptions,
thinking or thoughts, feelings such as pleasure and pain, emotions such
as happiness, love, sadness, hopes and desires are all states of
consciousness. In a narrower sense, which many philosophers have
preferred, only cognitive states are states of consciousness. In this sense,
one would regard pleasure and pain, hopes and desires as not states of
consciousness, but at best as possible objects of one's cognition or
knowledge and so objects of consciousness. In the third, perhaps, the
most restricted sense, one regards consciousness as what should be called
self-consciousness, that means not the primary cognitive states but one's
awareness of these states. When we go through different theories of
consciousness in Indian philosophy, we will notice how these three
senses are being used in different systems.
III
CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS BASIC MARKs
In discussions of the nature of consciousness in Indian or Western
traditions, some important features are recognized as distinguishing
consciousness from all other things. Two of these have especially been
important: these are intentionality and self-luminosity. One might attempt
a generalization-risky though it is--and argue that self-luminosity has
been the central feature of consciousness in the Indian tradition, while
intentionality has occupied that position in the Western tradition. I am
Introduction 7
not trying to suggest here that the Indian tradition does not recognize
intentionality or that the Western tradition ignores
Self-luminosity implies that a state of consciousness, by its very
existence, is' aware of itself. Alternatively, one could say that if a subject
S has a state of consciousness C, then S eo ipso is aware of having C, so
that it is never the case that S has C without being aware of itself. By
intentionality is meant the property, which every state of consciousness
has, of referring to an object, being about something, or simply having
an object. For those who regard consciousness to be intentional by
defInition, it is never \:he case that the subject S has a state of consciousness
C, but C is not about something whatsoever. In other words, one is always
conscious of something no matter what the ontological status of that
object might be. It may be an external object, it may be an internal or
mental object, or it may be an abstract entity like number, or it may be
an illusory object like the snake that one sees under illusion.
There are many philosophical problems concerning both these
features and these questions will be discussed in course of discussing
the theories of consciousness in Indian philosophy. In particular, I shall
discuss the question whether both these features can be combined as
characterizing the consciousness, or whether they are mutually
incompatible.
For the present, I wish to add one more preliminary remark before
concluding this section. In the preceding paragraphs, I have talked about
states of consciousness. This, may lead one to wonder whether the
locution 'states of consciousness' implies a distinction between
consciousness and its states, analogously to the way one distinguishes
between a body and its states. There are three possible answers to this
question:
1. One may look upon consciousness as a substance (as a body
may be taken to be), and the states of consciousness to be the
states of this substance. Conceived in this way, consciousness
may be impiicitly taken to be the same as what one calls the
'soul' or the 'mind', that is, a spiritual substance.
2. Or, one may regard the states of consciousness not really to
be the states of consciousness, but rather conscious states,
which makes the analogy with the body misleading.
Consciousness per se, in that case would not be a substance,
which undergoes changes in the form of states, but rather a
universal, which is instantiated in these changing states.
The abstract noun-forming suffix 'ness' may suggest this
interpretation. But other linguistic usages would not be
consistent with this reading. One, -example, speaks of' my
consciousness', which suggests that consciousness is not a
universal., but a something which is differentiated as mine or
yours. Universals are not differentiated in this fashion.
3. Or, one may regard consciousness Simply as a blanket term,
which applies to all states of consciousness without standing
for either a substanCe or a universal. (This ambiguity in the
meaning of the word 'consciousness' is reflected in various
theories of consciousness in Indian philosophy.)
Anticipating the detailed expositions of the theories in the chapters
to follow, I would at this point suggest that the first account is that of
Vec:Ianta and the third of Buddhism. The second comes close to the Nyaya-
account in some respects, while differing from it in others.
IV
IMPORTANT CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTIONS
Although all Indian philosophers agree that consciousness reveals or
manifests its object, they differ widely regarding its nature. It is not an
exaggeration to say that the philosophers belonging to different Vedic
and the non-Vedic darSanas have argued for centuries-and continue
to argue-about the nature and function of consciousness. Materialists
and naturalists of various kinds have attacked it and sought to expel it;
and metaphysicians have sought to find a place for it in the scheme of
things; psychologists have classified and described its various modes;
idealist philosophers have found in it the clue to the natUre of reality. A
close and careful study of it in Indian thought cannot but help us, not
only in understanding one of the pervasive themes in Indian philosophy,
but also in evaluating the Western philosophers' thoughts about it. It
may even be hoped that we may suggest ways of dealing with the new
questions that are being asked about consciousness in scientific circles
today.
Before undertaking an analysis of these divergent theories, however,
let me pause briefly to review some distinctions that might
help my readers come to grips with the nature and function of
Introduction 9
consciousness in the Indian tradition. Wherever necessary, I shall place
these distinctions in their proper historical. context. I hope that these
distinctions will not only help my readers correctly understand the basic
issues that surround this important notion of consciousness, but also set
the stage for the discussion to ensue in the following chapters.
The Empirical- Transcendental Distinction
Consciousness may be taken to be either empirical or transcendental.
An empirical theory would identify consciousness with such states as
'consciousness of this pitcher' or 'consciousness of that jar'.
Consciousness in this context always belongs to someone (e.g., Bina
Gupta) and is of an object, (e.g., this pitcher). Empirical consciousness
has the following features, no matter how widely accounts of it may
differ otherwise: (1) it must be caused by worldly events and processes;
(2) it must belong to an embodied self; and (3}it must be of something,
that is to say, it must be directed towards objects in the world. To these,
I should perhaps add another: (4) empirical consciousness must be a
temporally changing process in time, and nota tiineless entity.
Transcendental consciousness, on the other hand, must be
independent of worldly causality. It is not an effect of causes, although
the question remains whether or not it can be a cause of effects. Its
intentional objects must not directly be those objects in the world. It is .
not a property of an embodied self, and it must not be a
series of constantly changing events-in time. In short, a transcendental
account of consciousness regards consciousness as without locus (asraya)
and without object and the condition of the possibility of
manifestation of anything whatsoever.
The Objectivist-Subjectivist Distinction
An objectivist theory} of consciousness is a theory which (a) regards
consciousness as caused by objective conditions and (b) looks upon
consciousness itself as an object, that is, as what is paraprakasa (= as
manifested by consciousness) like any other object (e.g., a jar). Thesis
(a) is metaphysical, while thesis (b) is epistemological.
A subjectivist theory of consciousness doe" not look upon
consciousness as an object, that is, as what is paraprakasalike any other
object, (e.g., a jar). Rather, it takes consciousness to be svaprakasa, that
is, self-manifesting. On such a theory, consciousness mayor may not be
caused. When it is not caused, it is wholly subjective and transcendental;
when caused, it may be either objective, or partly objective and partly
subjective.
Though I have outlined above the different and perhaps extreme
models of thinking about consciousness, we must remember that in the
context of Indian philosophy, the actual philosophical systems are much
more complex and exemplify many intermediate shades and possibilities.
It seems to me that of the schools ofIndian philosophy, Carvaka, Nyaya-
Vaise;;ika, and Mimamsa are prime examples of the empirical and
objectivist view; Advaita Vedanta and Sarpkhya-Yoga are subjectivist-
transcendental; and Yogacara Buddhism is partly objectivist and partly
subjectivist. Between Yogacara and Advaita Vedanta, there are several
different schools of Vedanta. Space limitations set forth for this book do
not allow me to do an in-depth investigation of these schools. Whenever
possible, however, I will refer to some of these schools, especially
Ramanuja's qualified non-dualism and Abhinavagupta' s Kashmir Saivism.
My readers must keep in mind that I am not trying to suggest here that
there is clear-cut dichotomy among Indian theories of consciousness,
that they can be divided neatly into crisp classifications. Nothing could
be further from the truth. However, it is my hope that the above scheme
would help my readers understand the Indian theories of consciousness
and come to grips with the similarities and differences that exist among
them.
Transcendental- Transcendent Distinction
The distinction between the meanings of the words 'transcendental' and
'transcendent' is important. In the Indian philosophical writings in the
English language, the word 'transcendental' is not clearly separated from
the word 'transcendent'. The distinction, famously drawn by Kant,
amounts to this: transcendent are all possible entities or things, which
are beyond the limits of possible experience (e.g., afterlife, God, and
soul), whereas transcendental principles are those that are the conditions
of the possibility of experience, such as the Kantian categories. In general,
on the Indian account, for a transcendental theory of consciousness as
herein described, consciousness is in a sense transcendent-for in its
pure nature it goes beyond all sensuous experience-but it is also
transcendental, in the sense that in the absence of consciousness there
would be no knowledge, empirical or otherwise.
Introduction
11
v
THE PURPOSE AND THE PLAN OF THE BOOK
I have prepared this book with two primary goals in mind: (1) to
demonstrate the profound contribution of Indian thought to the theme
of consciousness, and (2) to make Indian thought accessible to my
readers, irrespective of whether they belong to the Indian or the Western
tradition. This book will clearly demonstrate that the theme of
consciousness has been central to the Indian tradition, especially the
Vedantic tradition, since the time of the (roughly 1000 BeE).
Heidegger, HusserI's successor and protege, was fundamentally mistaken
in claiming that the theme of consciousness belongs essentially to modem
Western philosophy, beginning with Descartes and reaching a final
culmination in Husserl. His view was based on the conception that the
notion of consciousness-as Hegel categorically stated-implies a
subject-object distinction, which did not characterize Indian thinking.
This book will amply demonstrate that Heidegger was mistaken in his
assessment. We shall see that the subject-object distinction provided
the starting point for Indian thinking on consciousness. It recognized
the possibility of consciousness to rise beyond subject-object distinction,
but also showed how this possibility may be actualized. Accordingly,
'cif, though usually translated as 'consciousness', encompasses within
its fold not only subject-object distinction, but also, what, for a lack of
better words, may be called 'trans-empirical', or 'supra-rational
consciousness' , that is, the consciousness that transcends subject-object
distinction.
This book, in accordance with the aim of the series in which it is
scheduled to appear, is more conceptual than historical. It surveys various
theories of consciousness in Indian philosophy. I begin with the
of consciousness, followed by the Nyaya,
Yogacara, Advaita, and selected contemporary developments of
consciousness in the Indian context. Given that no philosopher or school
of philosophy develops in isolation, I have discussed the important issues
surrounding the notion of consciousness in the context of their interaction
among different schools of Indian philosophy. Also, throughout the book,
wherever necessary, I make some brief comparative remarks showing
similarities and differences between the Indian and the Western
conceptions of consciousness--primarily theories of Kant, Hegel, and
Husserl-and detail some of these points in the concluding essay of this
book.
It is important to note that I discuss various theories of consciousness
in Indian philosophy in the context of their respective conceptual
structures and argumentative forms rather than in their historical
development. A comprehensive knowledge of a school of philosophy
requires both knowledge of its historical development, as well as of its
conceptual structure; it is also important to know the main philosophers
belonging to the school under consideration, as well as the arguments
advanced by them in support of their theses. Abstracting from history
seems to reduce a school to a system of concepts, supported by a number
of arguments. A particular school or system certainly does not come into
being based on such abstractions. However, once it is there, one can
abstract such a structure and reconstruct its discursive foundations. History
yields one kind of understanding, while the abstract structure yields
another. In this work, I do not claim to provide a complete grasp of the
philosophical schools that I hav(O: discussed, but rather present an aspect,
which a mere historian of philosophy does not provide.
Indian philosophy presents not one single homogeneous theory of
consciousness, but a whole array of theories. I did not wish my exposition
to be a simple disconnected listing of different theories of consciousness,
whose contents do not dictate any sequence. Keeping this in mind, I
have characterized these theories in accordance with a guiding unitary
thread, which consists of two binary oppositions: subjective-objective
and empirical-transcendental. After explaining these binary oppositions,
I have classified different theories of consciousness into four types, which
arise when one combines these binary oppositions, in order to provide
my readers with a synopsis of important themes that run throughout the
different theories of consciousness. In so doing, these themes proVide a
context and perspective for several different theories contained in this
book and at the same time voice the underlying purpose of this book.
My arrangement of the four types of theories is undoubtedly guided
by my own preference as a philosopher. If I were a Naiyayika at heart, I
would have placed that objectivist theory at the end. But being an Advaitin
in my own philosophical predilections and conscious choice, I have so
arranged these diverse theories that the story culminates in a subjectivist-
transcendental theory. No philosophical exposition can pretend to be
neutral; only a historian may claim that neutrality. I am fully aware that
in adding a chapter of the Advaita theory, I
have seemingly brought in a perspective which is historical. I have done
Introduction 13
so not to complete a historical account, but rather to show that the
conceptual nature of the Advaitic theory of consciousness undergoes
transformations in the hands of many contemporary thinkers, which
makes the Advaitic theory of consciousness stronger and more responsive
to modern philosophical challenges.
The concluding chapter of this work presents the contemporary
challenges in the discourse of Western philosophy and shows that the
Advaita Vedanta fares well when compared to Kant, Hegel, French
deconstructionist Derrida, and the quantum physicist. This indeed is a
powerful list. The claim that I have reviewed some Western conceptions
and assessed the Vedanta and other Indian schools in their light, is
certainly a large claim. However, I believe that within the short compass
of this project, I have succeeded in pointing out directions which can be
followed and lines of thought which can be developed further, both by
me in the future and by my readers.
With this in mind, let us begin the story.
Notes
1. 'The Confessions', chapterxrv. Whitney J. Oaks (ed.), Basic Writings of
Saint Augustine, New York, Random House, 1948, p. 191.
2. It is as though, the One, in the language of the Upanit?ads, said 'I want
to be many' (abarrt babu syam). The idea of one becoming many is one of the
recurring themes of the Upanit?ads. For example, Brbadara1J.yaka Upan4ad
(BU) portrays Prajapati as 'undefined', 'unlimited', 'Who?', Le., one who has
no identity and has no name and conceives a desire to multiply himself, manifest
himself, to become the many:
In the beginning, there existed here only the atman, having the form
of a person And that, having looked around, saw no other
than the self. He first uttered the words: "That am I," and thereby
became "He" by name. Therefore, even now, when (one is)
addressed, he 'first says just "It is I" and then declares another name
which he bears (Cf.BU, 1.4.1--4).
3. BU, 2.3.6.
4. MalJ.r!ukya (MAU), 1.
5. Abhinavagupta, a KashmIrI Saiva theologian, is considered to be one of
the leading exponents of the non-dualistic Saivism. It is not an exaggeration to
say that he profoundly influenced the philosophies of KashmIr Saivism.
6. Abhinavagupta's theory of consciousness, in many respects, is similar
to Sarpkara's theory of consciousness. Like Sarpkara, Abhinavagupta regards
primary consciousness, one universal and undifferentiated, to be the
metaphysical soutce, basis, and the foundation of all things. But unlike Sarpkara,
he does not regard the world and the finite selves to be the illusory appearances
of the one consciousness. They are not products of maya superimposed upon
the latter. Rather, they are real modifications, which arise out of and return into,
the one consciousness. And all this takes place by virtue of the inherent, free,
and creative power (sakti) which lies in the very nature of consciousness. Citis
also sakti. Herein lies the most distinctive feature of Abhinavagupta's KashmIr
Saivism. That consciousness is not only, like light, of the nature of self-
manifestation, but also force and power is one of its chief contributions to the
philosophy of consciousness. Such a theory, no doubt taken up and developed
by Sri Aurobindo, has enormous metaphysical possibilities, especially in the
philosophies of physics and biology.
7. See Aitareya Upan4ad, 5.2; Kaw;itaki Upan4ad, 3.3; and Bhagavad
Gita, 3.41, 6.8, 7.2, 9.1, and 18.42 (for various usages of jiiana and vijiiana)
Also see Sarpkara's and Ramanuja's commentaries on these verse of the Gita.
2
Consciousness
Its Beginnings in the
The Upanil?ads are early Hindu texts and are fonnally parts of the Vedas,
the earliest and the most basic scriptures of Hinduism. In the
the fundamental Hindu beliefs, e.g., the foundation of the world, kanna
and rebirth, the true nature of the self, etc., were dearly articulated for
the first time. The Upanil?ads are generally taken to signify the esoteric
teachings imparted orally by the guru (spiritual teacher) to his disciples
(upa, 'near'; ni, 'down'; sad, 'to sit'). In this oral tradition, the guru and
the pupils engaged in discussions, which gave the discourse an
intellectual fonn and eventually became incorporated as part of the strictly
philosophical tradition.
The Upanil?ads still remain a major source of inspiration and authority
for the Hindus. The principal Upanil?ads were composed sometime
between 600 and 300 BCE. It is generally believed that there are 200
the traditional number, however is 108. These texts were not
compiled in the same period. They were composed by different
individuals, living at different times and in different parts of North India.
Additionally, the individuals who put the Upanil?ads into their final written
fonn incorporated their own teachings in the Upanil?ads. In some cases,
different chapters of the same represent the ideas of different
thinkers. Thus, the Upanil?ads are not systematic philosophical treatises
by any means. If one tries to look for an integrated system of philosophy
in the Upanil?ads, one will be disappointed. There is no coherent system;
there is no systematic and logical development of ideas. They contain
inherent ambiguities, inconsistencies, and even seeming contradictions.
The especially the longer ones, are in the form of dialogues
and try to convey truths using symbols, narratives, metaphors, and
concrete images. Their highly symbolic language and elliptical style
further compounds the problem. Thus, it is not easy to summarize the
teachings ofthe Upanil?ads. However, one can discern a broad theme of
16
Cit: Consciousness
the coherence and final unity of all things that has been reiterated in
different ways.
The discussions of 'consciousness' in the arise in the
context of explaining the real nature of the atman or the self. The Sanskrit
term for consciousness is 'cif. In the Western philosophico-religious
traditions, the term' self' generally connotes a subject, the referent ofT.
Atman, however, though usually translated as 'self', does not refer to
the '1', the empirical self. In the both cit and atman refer to
pure consciousness, a kind of trans-empirical consciousness, which not
only is different from the empirical consciousness, but also forms the
basis of the latter. Following the literal translation of the term' cit' as
, consciousness', in this chapter, I shall use' self', 'consciousness', 'pure
consciousness', 'real self', and 'pure self' interchangeably to connote
atman or cit, to be distinguished from the empirical self (fiva), the 1-
consciousness.
I
To express their vision of the unity of things, most identify a
single fundamental principle which underlies everything. The most
typical designation for this is the 'brahman'. This fundamental principle
is also the core of each individual, and this core has been deSignated as
the 'atman', the 'self', the life force independent of physical body. In
the language of the the brahman, the first principle, is
discovered within the atman, or conversely, the secret of the atman, the
foundational reality of the individual self, lies in the first principle,the
root of all existence. In other words, the atrnan and the brahman are
one. This oneness between the atman and the brahman expresses the
quintessence of the teachings. The variously repeat
this teaching: tat tvam asi, 'that thou art'/ 'brahman is intelligence';2
aham brahmasmi, 'I am brahma';3 and ayam atma brahman, 'this atman
is brahman'.4 These four, generally known as the great sayings
(mahavakyas), reiterate the same point in different ways: the outer and
the inner are one. They Signify brahman = atman, meaning thereby that
'I', 'you', 'the world', indeed, everything is brahman = atman.
The seers sought not simply to understand this oneness
between the atman and the brahman, but also to know it, to experience
it. Given that the brahman defies all characterizations and descriptions,
it seemed entirely appropriate to the seers to begin with the atman, the
Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the 17
foundational reality of the empirical individual. Thus, the nature of the
atman became the focus of their investigations. Through an analysis of
the nature of the self, an individual realizes that the brahman and the
atman, the objective and the subjective, are one. The questions arose:
What is atman or consciousness? How does the atman relate to the
psychophysical organism, or what we call T? Who am I? How does one
realize the oneness between the atman and the brahman?
The Upanii?ads make many attempts to specify the nature of atman.
They use various concepts to characterize the atman or consciousness,
for example, 'seer' or vijiiata),5 'self-light' or 'self-shining'
(atmajyoti),6 inner controller' (antaryamt),7 or 'self-luminous'
(svayarrtjyoti).8 In many Upanii?ads, the attempts to specify the nature of
atman have involved distinctions between different stages of
experience-more appropriately, of consciousness. I am referring here
to the distinctions between waking, dreaming, deep sleep consciousness,
and tunya. It is one of the common methods adopted in the Upanii?ads
for arriving at the knowledge of the self as consciousness.
Given that no single Upanii?ads provides a systematic and
comprehensive account of the nature of the atman, one must discuss
materials from different Upanii?ads and piece them together to get a
complete coherent picture. To this end, in this section, I shall primarily
discuss materials from the Brhadara1'Jyaka (BU), the
Cbandogya and the Ma1'Jq,ukya The
dialogues and accounts selected proVide an illuminating discussion of
the different states of consciousness in the context of discussing the nature
ofatman.
The most succinct, systematic, and formal discussion of the states of
consciousness occurs in the Ma1'Jq,ukya Upani!fad. This Upanii?ad contains
the first articulation of going beyond the triad format, that is, the three
Vedas, three words, aum, and so on. It adds a fourth state to the three
states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. However, the two earliest
and Significant preculisors to the Mar:tq,ukya s analysis of the
states of consciousness are found in the Brhadarar:tyaka and the
Chandogya Therefore, I shall begin my discussion with the
account found in the Brhadarar:tyaka and Chandogya and
conclude this section with an analysis of the states of consciousness in
the Ma1'Jq,ukya
Discussions about the states of consciousness occur twice in the
Brhadiirar:tyaka Upani$ad. The first one occurs in the form of a
dialogue between Ajatasatru and Gargya. Keeping in mind that a person
18
Cit: consciousness
regains consciousness upon awakening from deep sleep, Ajatasatru
asks Gargya: 'Where does a person possesses
consciousness (vijiicmamaya)-go during sleep and from where does
he come back?'9
Gargya could not answer this question. Ajatasatru then takes Gargya
to a person who is asleep and points out that during sleep when the
senses are restrained, the empirical person rests in the space within the
heart. In dream, the mind and the senses are not restrained and a person
moves as he pleases, he becomes a king or a brahmin as it were. In deep
sleep, however, a person knows nothing; he moves through the 72,000
channels called 'hitcl' and rests in the pericardium. In this state, one
rests like a youth or a king or a brahmin who has reached the maximum
Catighni) of bliss. 10
In another well-known dialogue, however, in the Brhadarar:tyaka
Upanifjad, the sage Yajiiavalkya
ll
describes the self as its own light. In
this dialogue between Yajiiavalkya and King]anaka, the king desires to
know the source of illumination that makes it possible for human beings
to function in this world. Yajiiavalkya initially informs the king that it is
the light of the sun. This answer, however, does not satisfy the king. He
further asks: 'When the sun has set what light does a person have?'
Yajiiavalkya informs him that it is the light of the moon. This reply does
not satisfy the king either. He queries further: 'With the setting of the
sun and the moon, what light does a person have?' Yajiiavalkya then
replies: 'It is the light of the fire.' The king persists in questioning and
asks what happens when the sun, and the moon, and the fire are out.
Yajiiavalkya informs him that it is the vae or the word that gUides a
person. The king finally asks: 'What is the source of light when the vae
is also at rest?' Yajiiavalkya replies:
The self is indeed his light; with the self as light, he sits, runs around,
does his work and returnsY
The self is its own light; it is self-effulgent, it is self-luminous.
Yajiiavalkya then goes on to describe different states of self or
consciousness. In the waking state, a person moves and functions on
account of external physical light. In dreams, however, he goes beyond
the waking world and the forms of death.
13
An individual passes from
dream consciousness to waking consciousness and then returns to
dream consciousness very much like a fish that swims from one bank of
the river to another.
14
In both dreaming and waking states, duality is
present. In deep sleep, however, consciousness passes into a state in
which there are no dreams, no desires, and no pleasure, just like a hawk
Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the Upan4ads 19
or a falcon having flown around in the sky becomes exhausted, folds its
wings and goes to his nest to rest. The self in this state is free from pain,
does not lack anything, does not know anything; there are no desires,
. no dreams. IS Yajiiavalkya explains this experience with the help of an
analogy: just as a man, when embraced by his beloved wife, does not
know anything within or without, even so this empirical self, when
embraced by conscious self, does not know anything within or without.
In this state, there is no desire, because the self is his desire so to speak,
because everything other than the self is forgotten.
16
There is a perfect
quietude Csamprasanna), there is nothing wanting or lacking; it is bliss.
It is said:
While one does not see anything there, one sees everything there.
Seeing, one sees not; for there cannot be any absence of the sight of
the seer, owing to the imperishability Cof the seer); there is not that
second entity differentiated from it which it can seeY
In this state, though the self does not see with the eyes, it is still the seer.
The character of seeing is intrinsic to the self; the self can never lose this
characteristic just as fire cannot lose the characteristic of burning. The
self sees by its own light, it is the ultimate seer; there is no other for the
self to see.
It is worth noting here that whereas Ajatasatru identifies the self
with the 'atighnr or bliss, Yajiiavalkya argues that the true self, though
not an object of thought, is experienced in the state of deep sleep, because
in this state consciousness alone is present without any object. 18 The self
by nature is free, pure, and eternal. It remains unaffected by pleasure
and pain. It is perfect serenity and bliss.
In the Chandogya Upan4ad, one of the attempts to specify the nature
of atman occurs in the context of the famous mahavakya ' tat tvam asi'.
It is not an exaggeration to say that this saying embodies the
doctrine of unity and coherence of all things. The Advaitins attach great
significance to this statement because, in their opinion, this saying affirms
a common locus, namely, consciousness, to the empirical person and
the brahman. In other words, it clearly and undoubtedly expresses the
oneness of the atman and the brahman. I shall begin with an analysis of
the context in which the text 'that thou art' occurs.19
The text occurs in the course of a dialogue between father, .Am!).i
Uddalaka, and his son, Svetaketu. Uddalaka sent his son Svetaketu to a
teacher to learn about the Vedas. Svetaketu left home at the age of twelve,
studied with the teacher for twelve years, and returned home at the age
of twenty-four, very proud of his learning and with a great opinion of
himself. His father, noticing his son's arrogance, asked him: 'Do you
understand the implications of that teaching by which the unheard
becomes heard, the unperceived becomes perceived, the unknown
becomes known?' Svetaketu confessed his ignorance and requested
instruction on the subject. Uddalaka explained as follows:
My dear, just as by knowing one lump of clay, all things made of clay
are known, the modification being only in name and arising from
speech, while in truth all is just clay; just as by knowing one nugget of
gold, all things made of gold are known, the modification being ody
in name and arising from speech, while in truth all is just gold; precisely
so is that knowledge, by knOWing which we know all.2
The point that the father was trying to make is as follows: to
understand clay or gold entails an understanding of all things that are
made of clay or gold, because the qualities of the modification in diverse
forms will reflect the quality of the stuff of which they are made. Similarly,
the father asked whether Svetaketu knew about the reality of which all
things were made and through which they were known. Svetaketu
informed his father that his teachers were presumably ignorant of this
teaching and asked him to explain this teaching further. Uddalaka
continued:
In the beginning there was being alone, one only without a second ....
He, the One, thought to himself: 'Let me be many; let me grow forth.'
Thus, he out of himself projected the universe. And having projected
this universe out of himself, he entered into every being. That 'being'
alone is the essence of all beings. All things have 'being' as their abode,
'being' as their support.
2
!
In other words, in the beginning, there was only being; the
phenomenal world of names and forms was not there. This being,
compelled by an inner necessity to become many, thought and by his
thought arose heat, which can be felt, and heat gave rise to water (which
can be felt and seen), and water gave rise to food (which can be felt,
seen, and tasted), the most material of the three elements. These three
elements form the foundation ofthe universe.
22
After establishing the fundamental evolution of the world from this
being, Uddalaka proceeds to show that human beings are the products
of the mixture of these three elements in different proportions. For
example, in the body, food assumes the form of mind, flesh, and
excrement; water of breath (prat}a), blood, and urine; heat of speech,
marrow, and bone. Similarly, the process of dying also reflects the
devolvement of these three elements. Upon death, people first lose
consciousness, though they still breathe. This constitutes reabsorption
of food by water; it is important to remember in this context that food
gives rise to mind and bodily consciousness; breath, on the other hand,
is an evolute of water. When water is reabsorbed in the heat, the breathing
stops, because water corresponds to breath. Even in the absence of breath,
the body remains warm, on account of the presence of heat in it. Finally,
when the heat disSipates into being, death is complete. In this passage,
being is said to be the source of the empirical body, mind, and the entire
phenomenal universe.
Mer establishing the evolution of everything out of and involution
of everything into, one being, at Svetaketu's insistence for further
instruction, Uddalaka asks Svetaketu to bring a fruit from the nyagrodha
tree and instructs him to cut it open. Svetaketu does so and finds seeds
in the fruit; however, he does not find anything in the seeds. The father,
U ddalaka, explains to the son that the entire tree comes from the invisible
essence that exists within the seeds. 'Believe me, my child, that which is
the subtle essence, this whole world has that for its self. That is the true
self. That thou art, Svetaketu. '23 This being, the source of everything, is
the self of Svetaketu, which is not different from atman or consciousness.
This consciousness thus not only underlies the empirical consciousness;
it is also the consciousness that underlies the world. Most of the Upanio?ads
echo the same point in different ways: that which lies beyond the plurality
of names and forms, that is, the self or consciousness, is not accessible
through empirical modes of knowing. Moreover, it serves as the
foundation of all experiences; however, it remains uncontaminated by
any experiences whatsoever.
In another dialogue in the Chimdogya we find that both
Indra (representing gods) and Virocana (representing demons) approach
Prajapati for the knowledge of the immortal self.2
4
They are eager to
learn about the self, which is free from sin, old age, death, hunger, thirst,
etc. Prajapati asks to wear his best clothes and jewellery and look
into a pool of water, which reflects his adorned image. Prajapati informs
them that the true self is nothing but the self seen in a reflection: that the
self is the same as the body. Virocana leaves with the mistaken notion
that the atman is the same as the body and so informs the demons. Indra,
however, was overwhelmed with doubts; he finds Prajapati's explanation
unsatisfactory. Indra says that he does not see any good in this explanation
because this implies that this self in the shadow is adorned when the
body is adorned, dressed when the body is dressed, cleaned when the
22
Cit: Consciousness
body is "cleaned, So the self will also be blind if the body is blind, lame if
the body is lame, crippled if the body is crippled, and will perish when
the body perishes.
25
So Prajapati next tells Indra that the self seen in
dream is the atman, that is the true self, because in the dream state the
self can roam independent of the body. Indra is not satisfied with this
answer either. He again approaches Prajapati for further explanation.
Prajapati informs Indra that the self experienced in deep sleep is the
atman: 'When a person is asleep with senses withdrawn, [when one] is
serene, and sees no dream-that is the self. This is immortal, this is the
brahman. '26 Indra left; however, he was not yet satisfied; so he returns
and tells Prajapati that in deep sleep, the self does not know itself nor is
it conscious of any objects. This explanation suggests to Indra that when
everything is withdrawn, even the subject ceases to be; it is destroyed.
This time Indra studies with Prajapati for five years. Finally, Prajapati
reveals to Indra the true nature of the self-'the body is the support of
the deathless and the bodiless self. Embodied self is affected by pleasures
and pains; however, pleasures and pains do not touch the bodiless self. '27
In embodied existence, the self is vulnerable to likes and dislikes; the
bodiless self, on the other hand, is untouched by these. The bodiless self
is unchangeable essence of the empirical self, the I-consciousness; it is
immortal. It is the highest light Cparama jyotil)), the light of lights.
The Mat14:ukya Upani:;ad states that the self is four-footed, that is,
there are four states of consciousness. At the outset, this
identifies aum with 'all that there is'; it refers to what was, what is, and
what will be. Though beyond time, it forms the unmanifest basis of the
manifest universe. The aum is the most effectual sound symbol of the
brahman. The three letters a, tt, and m of the word aum correspond to
the three forms in which the self appears respectively, in the states of
waking, dreaming, and dreamless deep sleep.
The three states of consciousness are known as: visva, taijasa, and
prajiia:
The universal self (vaiSvanara), with the waking state (jagaritasthana)
as its manifestation, with consciousness directed outward, of seven
limbs and nineteen mouths, is the enjoyer of gross things, is the first
quarter.
The second quarter is the taijasa or the luminous, with the dream
state as its manifestation, with consciousness directed inward, with
seven limbs and nineteen mouths, it is the enjoyer of consciousness
not related to objects.
Where the sleeper desires no desires, sees no dream, that is deep
sleep The third quarter has deep sleep for its manifestation;
Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the Upanif;ads 23
it has become one, is of the nature of enlightenment, full of bliss, an
enjoyer of bliss, with consciousness as its face. 28
ViSva is the waking consciousness in which the self cognizes external
objects. It ha's seven limbs
29
and nineteen mouths. 30 Given that it is only
in this state the self is conscious of external objects, its experi.ences are
sensuous. The waking consciousness is the first foot Cpada) of the self. It
is the outermost appearance of the self. Taijasa, the dreaming
consciousness, is the second state in which the self enjoys impressions
imprinted upon the mind during the waking experience. In this state,
the self is 'internally conscious'; it experiences subtle objects created
out of the mental impressions of the waking consciousness. This state is
sublated on waking up. The third state, prajna, is a state of dreamless
sleep in which the mind and the senses are quiescent and there is a
cessation of normal consciousness; the subject-object distinction no
longer exists, nor does distinction among objects. There are no desires,
no dreams, neither pleasures nor pain. It is an entirely undifferentiated
state. This self in this state is still capable of knowing, but does not know
anything because there is no object to know. Therefore, it is called prajna:
'It is not a state of consciousness in the ordinary sense; but it is not a
state of blank or absolute consciousness either, for some sort of awareneSS
is associated with it. It is not, however, "the objectless knowing subject"
that endures in it ... ; for along with the object, the subject as such also
disappears then. It is rather a state of non-reflective awareness, if we
may so term it. '31
Apart from the three states of consciousness discussed above, the
Matpji1kya p a n i ~ a d also recognizes a fourth state, the tur'iya (the
transcendent), the undifferentiated state of pure consciousness which is
beyond the changing and conditioned phenomenal modes of existence.
Consciousness in itself is independent, inactive, eternal, undifferentiated,
light without any content, that exists as pure 'jna'. The atman or
consciousness, though eternal, also persists in empirical-practical
experiences. In the final analysis, the brahman, the atman, and the
individual self are one.
II
The above discussion about the self or consciousness reveals that the
Upani.'?adic quest for self was not Simply an intellectual analysis; the
goal was to provide an understanding of the meaning and the significance
24
Cit: Consciousness
of the world as well as a satisfactory explanation of the identification of
the atman, 'the brahman, and the empirical self or the individual
consciousness.
We also notice that the seers use divergent paradigms
and traverse their journey in quest of self from different, and at times,
opposite directions. In his quest, Uddalaka begins with the paradigm of
evolution and involution, that is, he begins by identifying the being (sat)
as the principle from which the world evolves and into which it devolves.
In contrast, Prajapati, Yajiavalkya, and the Mar;t/:ukya Upan4ademploy
a kind of deeper hierarchical approach using different levels of experience
in which one observes different states of consciousness. They move from
gross to subtle and from subtle to still subtle and progressively unfold
the meaning of the self using different levels of experience and finally
arrive at the most basic, the most fundamental, the deepest level. These
employ a psychological, or better yet, a subjective approach,
given that they use different stages of consciousness to unfold
progressively the real nature of the self as consciousness. UddaIaka, on
the other hand, employs a physical or objective approach insofar as he
begins with an analysis of the outer world, and arrives at the conclusion
that the same consciousness underlies both the objective and the
subjective; in the final analysis they are one.
We also see that the Chandogya Upan4ad and Brhadarar;yaka
upan4ad provide different accounts of the deep-sleep state. In recalling
the Indra and Prajapati dialogue discussed above, we find that when
Prajapati informs Indra that the atman is experienced in deep sleep,
Indra goes away with a tranquil heart; h9wever, before arriving at the
gods, he sees the danger of identifying the self with the deep sleep
because in this state the embodied self does not know himself as 'I am
he' nor does it know other beings. So Indra reflects that in the deep-
sleep state the self has 'become one who has gone to destruction
(vinasam evaapita). I see nothing useful in it'.3
2
Thus, Indra takes the
lack of subject-object duality in deep sleep to signify the destruction of
the subject itself. Indra returns to Prajapati after five more years and
Prajapati reveals to him the true nature of the self. The dialogues discussed
above from the BrhadarmJyaka Upan4ad, on the other hand, explain
the deep-sleep state differently. Whereas, in the first dialogue, Ajatasatru
states that the self in the state of deep sleep reaches the maximum
(atighnZ) of bliss, Yajiavalkya, in the second dialogue, points out that
the self in this state is the ultimate seer.
Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the UpaniCiads 25
Notwithstanding the divergent approaches and at times opposite
starting points, these Upani:;;ads unanimously highlight the following
characterizations of atman or consciousness:
1. Consciousness, although the basis of the all knowing, is
different from the object known. It is implied in every act of
knowing. It is the ultimate subject; it can never become an
object of knowledge. It is one, immutable, indivisible reality.
2. It is different from the I-consciousness or the empirical
individual (jiva), who cognizes and enjoys. In other words, it
is different from the empirical individual who is caught up in
the triple states of waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep.
3. Consciousness, although it continues in the three states of
waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, is not identical with any of
them.
4. It shines in its own light; it is self-luminous.
Let us expound on these points further.
Although the Upani:;;ads use different concepts-'seer', 'inner
controller', 'self-light', 'self-shining', 'self-luminous' ,-to characterize
the atman or consciousness, they echo the same point in different ways:
that which lies beyond the plurality of names and forms, that is, the self,
is not accessible through empirical modes of knowing. While
consciousness is eternal and is non-different from the brahman, it also
persists in empirical-practical experiences. Accordingly, it is more
fundamental than the merely empirical. It is completely independent,
exists in its own right, and is the basis of our understanding of 'I'. It is
eternal, non-dual, and remains unchanged. It is the basic presupposition
of all knowing:
That this self entered here into all these bodies up to the fingernail
tips, just as a razor would be hidden in its case, or as fire, which sustains
the universe, lies i11 its source. [People) do not realize it, for [as seen] it
is incomplete (when viewed piecemeal) .... Of all these, the self alone
is to be known, because one knows all through it, just as one can
trace (a missing animal) through its footprints.
33
This passage declares in no uncertain terms that by knowing the self
one acquires complete knowledge of all its names and forms, because
the unmanifest differentiates itself into names and forms. This very self
enters into all bodies up to the nail ends, like a razor enters into the
razor case, or fire enters into the wood; while breathing it is known as
the life energy Cpra:;:za); while seeing as
the eye while hearing as the ear; and while thmkmg as the mmd. These
are the names of the self corresponding to its actions. Knowing
the self amounts to k..11.owing all its names; the self is the unitary basis of
all knowing.
Though the self or consciousness is the basis of all knowing, it cannot
be known by any empirical means of knowledge; it is different from
objects known. The self cannot be known like another physical object,
say, a table. It is the eternal Sight or the seer.
[You] cannot see the seer of seeing, [you cannot] hear the hearer of
hearing, [you cannot] think the thinker of thinking, [you cannot] know
the knower of knowing.
34
The self forms the basis of both the subjective and the objective poles of
experience. Functions of the body-seeing, hearing, knowing, etc.-:
occur not in the self but in the outside world. Rather, the self is the
knower of all; it is the eternal witness; the ultimate subject that can never
be made an object of knowledge. That is why it can only be described as
'neti, neti' ('not this, not this').35 No description of it is possible except
the denial of all empirical attributes.
This very same self is said to be the self of the world. It lies behind
everything, it controls everything from within; it is the inner controller:
[It is] the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the
unknown knower. There is no seer other than him, no hearer other
than him, no thinker other than him, no knower other than him. He is
your self, the inner controller, the immortal. Other than him is the
sufferer. 36
The 'sun and the moon', 'heaven and earth', the flow of rivers, etc.,
operate at his command. The subject-object duality functions in the
phenomenal world of names and forms. The experientially variable can
only be isolated against an invariable background. It is self-contradictory
to say that there are things but no consciousness. The consciousness or
the self is a necessary condition for all knowing, that is, all actions,
thoughts, and cognitions presuppose consciousness. It is a witness to
everything that happens. As witness, the self stands behind everything
that is known (known discursively in wakeful life, known dreamingly in
dreams, and known as unknown in deep sleep).37
The lesson one learns from the distinction between the waking,
dreaming, and dreamless states is that consciousness is not coextensive
either with the waking awareness of things in the world or with feelings
Consciousness: Its Beginnings in the Upani$ads 27
and thoughts within; the self or consciousness is continuous in all three
states. It passes from the dream state to waking life and from waking life
back to the dream state very much like a fish that swims from one bank
of the river to another. When a person goes to sleep, he takes with him
the impressions received during the waking state, pulls them apart,
reconstructs them, and dreams by his own nature and own light. The
sun illuminates objects in waking life. Since the sun does not shine inside
us, but yet objects are revealed to the dreaming self, there must be another
source of illumination. It is said:
When he goes to sleep, he takes with him the material of this all-
embracing world, himself pulls it apart, himself builds it up; dreams
by his own nature and own light; then this person becomes self-
illuminating. 38
In other words, in the waking state a person is aware of the subject-
object duality. While dreaming, since one is only aware of dream objects,
the waking individual himself becomes both the subject and the object,
so to speak. The impressions of the waking state furnish the materials
for the dream state. In the dream state, the body is set aside for all practical
purposes. When, in dreams, the mind detaches itself from external objects,
the self manifests those impressions. The power of manifestation belongs
to the self, which serves as the light in all three states. The dream world,
being its own creation, is lighted by the eternal vision of the self. In
other words, the self itself becomes the light, and, accordingly, must
shine by its own light.
The consciousness, though continuous, is not identical with any of
the three states. Both dreaming and waking states are characterized by
duality. In deep sleep, however, the self, like a hawk or a falcon, who
having flown around in the sky becomes exhausted, folds its wings and
goes to his nest to rest, passes into a dreamless state in which it has no
desire, no pleasure, and no dreams. In this state, there is no desire because
all objects of desire have been realized and only the self remains as
devoid of all pains and afflictions. 39 The self in the deep-sleep state does
not know anything for there is no object to know,40 yet because there
cannot be any absence of seeing on the part of the knower who is
imperishable, it is said to be the ultimate seer. In fact, the sight and the
seer are one.
Yiijiiavalkya in his discussion with King Janaka hammers the point
that though the self does not perceive any object in deep sleep, it still
sees in that state; however, it does not see in the usual manner, that is,
through the eyes. Consciousness is imperishable; there is no cessation
28
Cit: consciousness
ftl
. fthe seer In the state of deep sleep, there is nothing else
o leseemgo . .
but pure consciousness. As fire never loses Its property ofburnmg or the
f hinm
' g. so the seer, the self, never loses its power of seeing.
sun 0 s ,
Yajiiavalkya here makes a distinction between two kinds of sight: the
phenomenal and the eternal. The former takes place with the eyes; such
a seeing is an accidental attribute of the self which has a beginning as
well as an end. Particular acts of sensing involve duality and take place
under particular spatio-temporal conditionsY However, the sight which
the self possesses by its very nature, like the burning of fire or the shining
of the sun, is eternal. Eternal seeing is an essential attribute of the self.
When it is associated with phenomenal sight, its limiting adjunct, it is
described as the seer and is differentiated into the seer and the sight. It is
metaphorically described at times as seeing and at other times as not
seeing, although it is the same forever. In reality, the seer and the sight
are identical. The self or consciousness exists within all; it is immutable.
The phenomenon of deep sleep is especially significant, since in it
all mental activities are suspended and the consciousness of individuality
is absent. The question arises: Is there awareness in deep sleep? Clearly,
many Indian philosophers have maintained that there is no awareness
in this state. But it is argued against this position that if there were no
awareness in the state of deep sleep, one could not, upon waking,
remember 'I slept well'. Memory is a reproduction of past experiences;
it amounts to the present recalling of a conscious experience of the past.
So if there is awareness in the state of deep sleep, of what is it aware?
For an answer, we again look closely at the statement 'I slept well'.
Clearly the object of awareness is the feeling of well-being, which is not
attached to a specific objective source (as one also reports upon waking
from deep sleep 'I was not aware of myself or of anything'). This report
suggests that the object of awareness was the simple non-knowing, or
ignorance, itself. So one could say that in the state of deep sleep, there is
awareness of ignorance in general, as well as of bliss or well-being (which
cannot be the same as pleasure), which characterizes consciousness in
its original nature. It points to the fact that knowledge of duality is only
a conditional and temporary feature of finite lives. From deep sleep,
one awakes and recalls that one slept happily and remembered nothing.
In the deep-sleep state, distinctions are not overcome. The self, being
hidden by a kind of undifferentiated darkness, absorbs duality and
multiplicity. Deep sleep demonstrates that something permanent,
unchanging, and foundational to all experiences must be present even
when the consciousness of external objects is not present. This state is
different from tunya, the fourth state.
Of the so-called fourth state, we are not told much in the
We have already seen that both the Brhadarar:z,yaka and the Chandogya
Upani5;ads do not recognize the fourth state. Nonetheless, they variously
describe the' self in deep sleep as the ultimate seer, light of lights, the
truth of truths, maximum of bliss, and so on. These concepts foreshadow
the tunya of the Mar:z,q,i:tkya From all accounts we have, it
would seem that tunya designates a state of release, which is the
underlying substratum of the triple states of waking, dreaming, and
dreamless sleep. In this state, the self is comprehended as 'it is', as
consciousness. Though it is not intentional and is not characterized by
the subject-object duality, it is not unconsciousness. 42 Tunya is described
as a state of consciousness that transcends the subject-object distinction,
while the first three states exemplify this distinction in their progressively
vanishing forms. One could argue that in these experiences,
consciousness asserts its freedom from the world of objects in different
states. If we follow this line of thinking, rather than the predominantly
Western idea that consciousness is intentionally directed towards the
world, we could say that in some darSanas of the Indian tradition, for
example, Vedanta and Sarpkhya-Yoga, consciousness is progressively
itself from the object-and in that sense consciousness
embodies in different forms the very idea of freedom.43 Commenting on
MAU, Sarpkara states that tunya is nothing but pure consciousness.
44
Whereas prajiia is conditioned by cause and effect, turiya is not
conditioned by either. Prajiia is deep sleep; it is the causal state that
gives rise to the cognitions of variety and multiplicity. Turiya
consciousness, like the sun, shines as ever luminous;45 it is opposed to
darkness that characterizes prajiia. It is at once sarvadrk, the seer of
everything that there is, and the witness of everything that exists. There
is nothing besides tunya. It exists in all beings during the waking and
the dreaming states, and is called the seer of everything. Being of the
nature of pure consciousness, the self shines forth in its own light
revealing eternally and contin,liously.
I
III
In the history of the concept of consciousness, in both the East and West,
we find a predominance of the metaphor of light. In Sanskrit literarure,
when talking about the light of consciousness, the metaphor of light is
very frequently used. This is no less true of Western thinking in these
30
Cit: consciousness
I
-th t I'n uhe Western philosophical tradition, Plato might
matters. t seems a . ..
_ h b the first to use this metaphor of lIght to charactenze the Idea
::e Just as the sun gives visibility to the objects in the physical
idea of the good gives intelligibility to the objects of thought. 46
Christian theologies regard God as the source of human reason so that
the light of reason is derived from the original light. For Aquinas, for
example, the intellect of the creature is also called the intellectual!
intelligible light derived from the primordiallightY However, the idea
seems to be that just as light has a source, Similarly human consciousness
derives from some source, say, for example, God, or, in the case of
Advaita Vedanta, atman-brahman.
It is perhaps since Descartes that the idea of consciousness in Western
philosophy became prominent and the metaphor of light came to be
applied to consciousness. In recent times, many Western philosophers
have drawn attention to the way the metaphor of light has influenced
the understanding of the nature of consciousness and mind in Western
philosophy. For example, Gilbert Ryle characterizes the concept of
consciousness as 'a piece of para-optics' .4B
The point of the metaphor of light is simple. Things that are in the
dark come to be illuminated and so seen when light is made to focus on
them. This picture has weighed heavily on thinking about consciousness.
In Indian thought, darkness is the metaphor used for not knowing, while
light is the metaphor for consciousness. A pervasive feature of discourse
about cit or consciousness in the is the use of the metaphor of
light. The BrhadaraJ'}yaka Upan4ad dialogue discussed earlier between
sage Yajiiavalkya and King Janaka begins with the following question
by King J anaka: 'Of what light is this In other words, the king
seeks to know the source of illumination that makes it possible for human
beings to function in this world. In the waking state, a person moves
and functions on account of external physical light. Thus, the obvious
question: what serves as a light for a person in dreams and in deep
sleep? Some sort of illumination must make it possible for us to see dream
objects. From deep sleep, one awakes and recalls that one slept happily
and knew nothing. This attests to the existence of some sort of light in
the deep sleep as well as in the dream states of consciousness. Therefore,
Janaka asks about the light which serves a person when he is asleep.
It is important to remember in this context that the sought-after 'light"
is more basic than the physical light which makes the perception of
physical objects possible. Yajiiavalkya answers that the self is the light
that serves a person in all the states: waking, and dreamless
sleep. Light in this context does not signify simply consciousness and its
conditions in an abstract sense, but also that which helps one to sit, walk
about, work, and return. The power of manifestation belongs to the self
as consciousness, which serves as the light in all three states. The dream
world, being its own creation, is lighted by the self or consciousness.
Consciousness is the light, and accordingly, shines by its own light. It is
self-effulgent and eternal; it is 'self-luminous' (svayarrz,jyoti).49
In Sanskrit literature, when talking about the light of consciousness,
the authors use the analogy of a lamp. This analogy should not to be
taken literally because both the lamp and its flame are material objects,
which are strictly speaking objects of consciousness. So when the
Vedantins use the metaphor of light, they do not mean the physical light,
the flame, the fire, and they certainly do not mean the lamp; what they
mean is the lustre (prabha), the capacity to manifest independently of
an impulse wr..ich makes possible all seeing or knowing. No physical
light satisfies this requirement of independence. A flashlight can show a
thing only to a conscious being; consciousness, however, shows things
without presupposing any other thing. A lamp does not show a thing to
itself, only to a consciousness. If consciousness is light, it must be such a
light as shows a thing only to itself. This gives rise to a fresh difficulty.
Consciousness by itself, it may be argued, cannot show anything. If there
is complete darkness, consciousness cannot penetrate it, only physical
light can. Consciousness also needs the cognitive apparatus of the body,
sense organs, for example, properly functioning eye, in order to make
something visible. So how could consciousness then be independent?
To such a question, Advaita Vedanta provides the following answer:
things in the world are first apprehended by the appropriate sense organs.
But this sensory apprehension is not yet knowledge of those objects
unless and until consciousness falls on those sensory modifications and
manifests them. Without consciousness, there would be no knowledge;
yet consciousness by itself cannot know external objects. Just as the
light of the sun must pe specifically focused through some channel or
other to make a thing visible, similarly the undifferentiated consciousness
must be focused on an object through the medium of a sensory modality
in order to manifest it. In the case of internal objects, however,
consciousness directly manifests them.
Given that the sense organs and all the other cognitive instruments,
like a lamp, or fire, are also objects manifested by consciousness, it makes
sense to say that consciousness manifests all things. Just as without the
sunlight, the universe would be shrouded in a r ~ e s s similarly without
consciousness nothing would be known or manifested.
In this context, it is necessary to underscore' one important point:
consciousness not only manifests all things; it also manifests itself. The
Vedantins often reiteratei:hat there is no need to bring another lamp to
show a burning lamp. Just as the light shows itself without the mediation
of any other light, similarly consciousness manifests all objects without
any mediation. So far, the metaphor oflight is applicable to consciousness.
However, when stretched further, we realize that the metaphor is not
entirely applicable. It is indeed true that the light shows itself without
requiring another light to manifest it. However, the light shows itself,
not to itself, but to another sentient being. What can we say of
consciousness in this regard? Consciousness, we agree, shows itself, but
to whom? Here there are many possibilities, and they are all represented
in Indian thought. That it shows itself to itself is the thesis of Advaita
Vedanta. That it shows itself, not to itself but to the self to whom it belongs,
that is, to its locus (svasrayam prati prakasamanatvarrt) is the thesis of
the school of Ramanuja.
In sum, the metaphor of light has been a pervasive feature of
philosophical thinking about consciousness. It has many modem critics.
I mentioned the name of Gilbert Ryle earlier. Heidegger is another critic.
I shall discuss some of these criticisms in later chapters of this book.
IV
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Upani-?ads contain the origin and
growth and the early crystallization of a variety of ideas associated with
the themes of consciousness. Notwithstanding the metaphysical and
epistemological ideas discussed above, the Upani-?ads suggest many
empirical theories about the nature of consciousness. Constraint of space
does not allow me to develop these theories here. I shall Simply draw
the attention of my readers to some of these conceptions in the hope
that it steers those who are interested in such accounts in the right
direction.
Among the empirical theories, we find a lot of discussion of the
relation of the mind and the food one eats,50 which in later writings finds
expression in the Bhagavad Gita in the idea that different kinds of food
produce various mental temperaments, the sattvtka, the rajasika, and
the tamasika.
51
There are also discussions regarding the relation between
attention and breathing, the ideas which become central to the theory
and practice of yoga. 52
We also find in the Upanio?ads one of the earliest classifications of
the various mental functions. It is worth noting that the Upani-?ads make
a distinction among different mental states and construe various cognitive
and conative states to be different functions of the mind. For example,
the Brhadara1!-yaka Upan4ad discusses the following mental modes:
desire, decision or determination, doubt, belief, disbelief, retention, non-
retention, shame, cognition, and fear. Of these, doubt, belief, disbelief,
retention, non-retention, and cognition are different kinds of cognition;
shame and fear are emotions; and desire and determination are
conations.
53
The Aitareya lists the folloWing: 'sensation,
perception, ideation, conception, understanding, insight, resolution,
opinion, imagination, feeling, memory, volition, conation, the will to
live, desire, and self-control', and further adds that' all these are different
names of intellection' .54
The Upanio?ads also draw attention to a controversy regarding the
primacy of the will (saf'!1kaipal?) versus the primacy of the intellect
(cittaf'!1). For example, the following passage from the Chandogya
categorically asserts the primacy of the will:
All these therefore ... centre in will, consist of will, abide in will. Heaven
and earth willed, air and ether willed, water and fire willed. Through
the will of heaven and earth, rain falls; through the will of rain, food
wills; through the will of food, the vital airs will; through the will of
the vital airs, the sacred hymns will; through the will of the sacred
hymns, the sacrifices will; through the will of the sacrifices, the world
wills; through the will of the world, everything wills. This is Will.
Meditate on Will. He who meditates on Will as brahman ... he is, as it
were, lord and master as far as Will reaches-he who meditates on
Will as Brahman.
55
However, at another place, the same Upanio?ad also goes on to affirm
the primacy of the when it says:
Intellect is better than Will. For it is only when a man thinks that he
wills ... All these centre in Intellect, consist of Intellect, abide in Intellect.
Therefore, if a man does not think, even if he knows much, people
say of him, he is nothing ... But if a man thinks, even though he knows
little, people indeed desire to listen to him. Intellect is the centre,
Intellect is the self, Intellect is the support of all these. Meditate on
Intellect. He who meditates on Intellect as Brahman ... he is, as it
were, lord and master as far as Intellect reaches-he who meditates
on Intellect as Brahman. 56
34
Cit: Consciousness
Another topic in the Upani$ads that influenced the later philosophies
is the theme of the four states of consciousness: waking, dreaming,
dreamless sleep, and tur'iya. Various hypotheses are proposed in the
Upani$ads on the nature of sleep. One is the so-called fatigue theory,
which using the analogy of a bird proposes that when a person is
exhausted he retires into sleep.57 Some other theories are: sleep is caused
by the senses being absorbed in the mind,58 or by the soul retiring in the
arteries, and so on.59 Some authors propose a more metaphysical theory
to the effect that in deep sleep the soul is one with the brahman. 60
Connected with these are the various explanations of dreaming. The
Brhadara1Jyaka locates the dream state as an intermediate
state in between waking consciousness and deep-sleep consciousness.
It states that apart from the two spatial locations-in this world and in
the other world-there is a third intermediate place, the dream state, in
which a person sees both this world and the other world, and taking the
materials from both the worlds, reconstructs himself. The person becomes
self-illuminated.
61
We are also told how in the state of dream
consciousness the self is creatively active insofar as it creates such dream
objects as horses, chariots, joys, and sorrows.
62
.Dream consciousness
might have provided the suggestion to many later philosophers that
consciousness can playa creative role with regard to its objects. One
could argue that Vasubandhu's vijiiapatimatratasiddhi makes use of
this idea. The Vijiianavadin Buddhists, who propose that consciousness
creates the objects making them appear 'as though' they are external,
use the language ofthe Ma1J4ukya Upan"4ad regarding the creativity of
dream consciousness.
In short, the ideas profoundly influenced all later Hindu
and Buddhist speculations on the nature of consciousness. A distinction
was made between the mind and cit or consciousness, and to regard the
former, the mind, as a faculty influenced by empirical conditions and
regard cit as the transcendental source of all manifestations. The
distinctions referred to earlier between different mental temperaments
determined by food and drinks, in that case, would concern the modes
of prakrti, while the pure citwould remain unaffected by these variations
as a mere witness-consciousness.
63
This distinction is also found in the
Sarpkhya and Yoga schools of Indian philosophy. The Advaita Vedanta
argues that the cit or consciousness is experienced in the fourth state,
tur'iya, and not in the first three. This notion of the self-remaining the
same in all three states, being the self-effulgent light--clearly anticipates
the later notion of the witness-consciousness. Again, the description of
the self as self-luminous (svayarrtjyoti) in the Brhadara1Jyaka
where the ultimacy of the self is again explicated by indicating that the
seer is unseen and that the knower cannot be known, foreshadows the
. notion of the witness-consciousness. The idea of the fourth state of
consciousness, tunya, plays an important role in the writings of the
Advaita Vedanta philosophers. Sarpkara in his commentary on
GaUtjapada's Karika describes tunya as the effulgent and all-pervasive
source of the knowledge of objects.
64
It exists in all beings during the
waking and the dreaming states, and is called the seer of everything.
There is nothing besides tunya.
To sum up, the reiterate one central point: consciousness
is a necessary presupposition of all knowing. To say that there are things
and no consciousness is self-contradictory. It is also different from the
perceptual triad-the perceiver, the act of perceiving, and the perceived
object. It is pure consciousness. It is of the nature of light; it is self-
luminous.
Notes
1. CU, 6, 8 and 10.
2. Aitareya Upani!jad, 3.1.3.
3. BU,1.4.10.
4. MAU,1.2.
5. BU,3.4.2.
6. Ibid., 4.3.6.
7. Ibid., 3.7.23.
8. Ibid., 4.3.9.
9. Ibid., 2.1.16.
10. Ibid., 2.1.19.
11. Yiijiiavalkya appears twice in BU, first in a verbal contest with other
brahmins and subsequently in a dialogue with King J anaka of Videha.
12. Ibid., 4.3.6. UnleSS otherwise noted, translations are mine. I have tried
to give a translation of some of the passages in readable English to make it
accessible to my readers without jeopardizing the integrity of the Sanskrit texts.
13. Ibid., 4.3.7.
14. Ibid., 4.3.18.
15. Ibid., 4.3.19.
16. Ibid., 4.3.21.
17. Ibid., 4.3.23.
18. Ibid., 4.3.30.
19. CU, VI.
20. Ibid.; 6.1.4-5.
21. Ibid., 6.2.1; 6.8.6-7.
22. These three elements anticipate the conception of the three gur;as which
are mentioned for the frrst time in the Atbarva Veda (x.8.43), and subsequently,
here. These three basic material constituents are described in the Svetasvatra
(45) as the red, white, and black constituents of prakrti, and they
eventually find their way into the Sil!l1khya school as rajas, sattva, and tamas.
23. CU,6.12.3.
24. Ibid., 8, 7-12.
25. Ibid., 8.9.1.
26. Ibid., 8.11.1.
27. Ibid., 8.12.1.
28. jagaritastbiJmo babi$prajfiaq saptanga ekonaviT(lsatimukbaq
stbillabbugvaiSvanaraq pratbamaq padaq. MAU, 3,
svapnastbano ekonavirtz&atimukbaq praviviktabbuk taijaso dvit'iyaq
padaq. Ibid., 4.
yatra supto na kaficana kamaT(l kamayate, na kaficana svapnarrt
paSyati, tat SU$Uptam sU$uptastbana ek'ibbutaq prajfianagbana evanandmayo
byanandabbuk cetomukbaq prajfiastrt'iyaq padaq. Ibid., 5.
29. CU, 5.18.2. provides a description of the seven limbs:
tasya ba va etasyatmano vaiSvanarasya milrdbaiva sutejaq, cak$ur
viSvarapaq,prar;aq prtbagvartmatma, samdebo babu/aq, bastireva rayib,prtbm
eva padav, ura eva vediq lomani barbiq brdayaT(l garbapatyaq, mano'
nvabarya-pacanaq, asyam abavan'iyaq. Of this universal self, the head is the
intense light, the eye is the universal form, the breath is (the air) of diverse
courses, the trunk is vast, the bladder is the wealth, the feet are the earth, the
chest is the altar, the hair is the sacred grass, the heart is the garbapatyaq fire,
the mind is the anvabarya pacanaq frre and the mouth is the abavan'iyaq fire.
The passage elucidates an essential one-to-one correspondence between
the microcosm and the macrocosm-just as there is a consciousness that animates
our physjC31'Dody, there is similarly a consciousness that animates the physical
universe. This consciousness resides in all beings. It is called vaiSvanara (viSva
= the cosmos + nara = man), the cosmic man. There is one man or one
consciousness that is immanent in everything, conscious and unconscious. It is
important to remember in i:his context that in saying that the consciousness has
seven limbs, one is only giving the rough contours of his personality. Perhaps it
is more accurate to say that this consciousness has infinite rather than
seven limbs. '
30. The nineteen mouths are concerned with the microcosmic aspect of
the consciousness, the state ofI-ness. They are: the five organs of sense (hearing,
touch, sight, taste, and smell), the five organs of action (speech, hands,
locomotion, generation, and excretion), the five vital breaths, the mind (manas),
the intellect (buddhi), the ego-sense (abayt1kiira), and the mind-stuff (citta).
The nineteen mouths thus pertain to the multiple functions of the self and depict
the self as a finite individual different from the real self. We consume ct-.dngs via
the mouth, which are assimilated in our bodies, so to speak. The five organs of
sense, the five organs of action, and the five vital breaths refer to the outer core
of the individual's activity. The remaining four-the mind, the intellect, the
ego-sense, and the mind-stuff-refer to the inner core of the individual.
31. M. Hiriyanna, Outlines of Indian Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin,
1967), p. 71. Hereafter this book will be tited as Outlines.
32. CU,8.11.1.
33. BU, 1.4.7.
34. Ibid., 3.4.2.
35. Ibid., 4.4.22.
36. Ibid., 3.7.23.
37. Bina Gupta, Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta: Epistemological Analysis
and Interpretation (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1991), p. 56.
Hereafter this book will be cited as Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta.
38. BU, 4.3.9.
39. Ibid., 4.3.21-2.
40. Ibid., 4.3.30.
41. Ibid., 4.3.23.
42. 'People normally experience deep sleep as a state of unconsciousness,
not one of objectless consciousness.' Joel Brereton, Approaches to Asian
Traditions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). See his chapter on
'The Upanishads', in this book. The article contains a very lucid discussion of
the basic ideas of the major Vedic
43. For example, see K.C. Bhattacharyya, The Subject as Freedom (Bombay:
The Indian Institute of Philosophy, 1930).
44. See Sarpkara's commentary on MAU, 12.
45. See Sarpkara's commentary on Gaurjapada's Karika 12. For a readable
translation of Gaucjapada's Karika, readers might wish to consult The
Ma1Jcjukyapani$ad with Gaucjapada's Karikii and Sayt1kara's Commentary,
trans. Swami Nikhilanancla (Mysore: Sri Ramakrishna Ashram, 1974).
46. Plato, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1987), Bk VI, XIX, pp. 508-9.
47. Aquinas, Summa Theologia, ed. Thomas Gilby (New York: Doubleday,
1969), Summa Theologiae I. Q. 12 a. 2.
48. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind(London: Barnes and Noble Publishers,
1949), chapter VI, sec. 2. For a criticism of Ryle's account, see ].N. Mohanty,
'The concept of consciousness', in Phenomenology and Ontology (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 163-9.
49. BU, 4.3.9.
50. CU, 6.5.4.
51. BG 17, 9-10.
52. CU, 1.3.3.
53. BU, 1.5.3. For a discussion of some of the ideas mentioned in this section,
readers might wish to consult, R.D. Ranade, A Constructive Survey of the
Philosophy (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1968), p. 84.
Henceforth this book will be cited as Ranade.
54. Aitareya Upan4ad, 3.2; Ranade, p. 85.
55. CU, 7.4.2.
56. Ibid., 7.5.1; Ranade, p. 85.
57. BU, 4.3.19.
58. Pra&na Upan4ad, 4.3.19.
59. CU, 8.6.3.
60. Ibid., 6.8.1.
61. BU, 4.3.9.
62. Ibid., 4.3.9-18.
63. I shall discuss this concept in my chapter on Advaita Vedanta.
64. See SaqJkara's commentary on Gautjapiida's Kiirikii 12.
3
The Objectivist Theory of
Nyaya -
1
In the first chapter of this book, I noted that all the empirical theories of
consciousness, of which the and l1unarpsa
2
are prime
examples, might be regarded as objectivist theories. It seems appropriate
to classify them in this fashion, because consciousness in these theories
is itself as much an object as any other object.
3
It certainly has some
distinguishing features, the most important being that it alone makes
objects known or manifested (arthaprakasobuddhi; buddhi is the same
as consciousness in But is spite of this special feature,
consciousness itself is still 3.fl- object. Like other objects, it has its own
causal conditions, its own coming into being and passing out of being,
and it is manifested by another consciousness. Everything in the world,
then, is an object-so also is consciousness. As a special kind of object,
consciousness is definable by its intentionality, that is, its intrinsic
reference to an object. In the technical language of Nyaya, it is savi:iayaka.
There is no mere awareness, no objectless consciousness, no
consciousness that does not belong to someone, or does not inhere
4
in
some self.
I
The main features of the Nyaya theory of consciousness may be
formulated as follows:
Consciousness is a quality of the self.
Consciousness alone has the irreducible quality of being of-
an-object (svabhavika In other words,
it is intentional. In this regard, it is different from such other
qualities as pleasure and pain.
It arises when certain appropriate conditions are present.
It is not eternal-it is produced and destroyed.
It is nirakara, that is, formless.
It is paraprakiiSa, not svaya1?lprakiiSa, i.e, it is manifested by
another consciousness, it is not self-manifesting.
In the previous chapter, we saw that the take cit or
consciousness to be the same as atman. This, however, is not the case
with the school of Indian philosophy . .Atman, for this
school, includes both the finite individual selves (and souls) as well as
the infinite soul, that is, God. Gotama, the founder of the Nyaya school,
provides his readers with a list of prameyas or objects of true knowledge,
and this list begins with atma. Vatsyana states:
The omniscient self is the seer, the enjoyer and the experiencer of all
things, the body is the place of its enjoyment and suffering, and the
sense organs are the instruments for enjoyment and suffering.
Enjoyment and suffering are cognitions (of pleasure and pain). The
inner sense or manas is that which can know all objects. Action
Cpravrtti) causes all pleasure and pain; so do the dO$as (defects),
namely, passion, envy, and attachment. The self had earlier bodies
than this one, and will occupy other bodies after this one, until the
achievement of 'mok$a' .This beginningless succession of birth and
death is called 'pretyabhclVa'. Experiences of pleasure and pain, along
with their instruments, i.e. body, sense organs, etc., are the 'fruit'
(phala). 'Pain' is inextricably connected with 'pleasure'. In order to
achieve mok$a or apavarga, one should realize that all happiness is
pain-which will result in detachment and, in the long run, freedom.5
The above list includes not only the objects of true knowledge, but also
such things as body, sense organs, objects (of these senses), intellect
(buddhi), mind (manas), action (prav'(ttz), defects the succession
of birth and death (pretyabhava), fruit (phala), suffering (duqkha), and
release Given that 'atman' for the is the
knower, the enjoyer, and the agent, in this chapter we shall not follow
the usual translation of the 'atman' as 'soul'. But we will translate it as
'self' .
After this list of entities, the next s'iitra proceeds to tell its readers
how the 'self' (or the atman) is known.? The self is too 'subtle', and
cannot be perceived by any of the senses. Such judgements as 'I am
happy', 'I am sad', do not provide any knowledge of the true nature of
the self. Hence, the obvious question: how is the: self known? It is said
that the self can be inferred from a series of such marks as pleasure,
The Objectivist Theory of Nyaya- 41
pam, desire, hatred, effort, and consciousness. These six are specific
qualities of the self, insofar as they belong only to the self. Of these six,
three, namely, desire, effort, and consciousness, are common to both
finite selves and the infinite self, that is, God; two-hatred and pain-
are found only in the finite selves; and the sixth, namely, happiness,
belongs both to the individuals and to God, though God's happiness is
eternal, while the happiness of finite individuals is non-eternal.
A cursory glance at the above marks reveals that the
regard consciousness as a gur;,a (quality).8 The
enumerate twenty-four gur;,as of the self.9 Consciousness is one of these
twenty-four, and-like happiness, misery, desire, aversion, volition,
merit, demerit, and sound-is subtle (amurta) and belongs to a non-
material substance. Of these nine qualities, six, namely, consciousness,
happiness, misery, desire, aversion, and volition, are apprehended by
the inner sense.
In their ontological scheme, if a particular is not a substance,1O it
could either be a gur;,aor a karma (action). Consciousness, being partless
and perishable, cannot be a substance. Actions, on the other hand, involve
motion; consciousness, however, has no spatial movement. Since it can
be neither a substance nor an action, it can only be a quality. One
argument often advanced to support the thesis that consciousness is a
quality runs as follows: consciousness is a quality, for though non-eternal,
it can be apprehended only by one sense (that is, by the manas, that is,
the inner sense), as is 'colour' Y The Naiyayikas further argue that no
quality can have an independent existence, apart from that of which it is
a quality. Thus, given that consciousness is a quality, it cannot have any
independent existence of its own; it must inhere and belong to some
substance. The question arises: whose quality is it?
In response, the Naiyayikas point out that it could either be a quality
of the self, or of the body12 that the self occupies, or of the senses, or of
the mind (manas). The Naiyayikas take great pains to demonstrate that
it is neither a quality bf the body, nor of the sense organs, nor of an
action; it is rather a quality of the self.
The Carvakas
13
(the materialists) argue that consciousness inheres
and belongs to the body. The Naiyayikas vehemently criticize this
conception of Carvakas. They agree with the Carvakas insofar as the
Carvakas assert that a quality cannot have an independent existence of
its own, but argue that consciousness cannot be a quality of the body for
the following reasons.
42
Cit: Consciousness
Consciousness cannot be a quality of the body, because it is not
found in dead bodies. A body continues to exist eyen in the absence of
consciousness. If it were a property of the body, it would also exist in
the different parts of the body and also in the ultimate ingredients, that
is, the bhutas, of which a body is composed. In that case, consciousness
would exist in the different parts of the body when the body is separated
and divided in different parts. However, there is no consciousness in the
parts and the constituents of the body; therefore, consciousness cannot
be a property of the body.
They further argue that it is absurd to maintain that consciousness is
a quality either of the material elements or of a combination of the
constituents of these elements for the following reasons:
1. activity and the absence of activity are the only indicators of
desire, aversion, and so on, which are not found in the material
elements;
2. the Carvaka view amounts to arguing that there are several
cognizers within one single body, which is ridiculous; and
3. the body, the sense, etc., are guided and controlled by another
principle, that is, the soul.
Material constituents are inert like external objects. Our inability to
experience consciousness apart from the body does not prove that it is a
property of the body. Coexistence of two things, say, A and B, does not
prove that one is the property of the other. If this were the case, one
could argue that visual perception is a property of light, because visual
perception cannot take place in the absence of light. Light is only an
auxiliary to the visual perception; Similarly, the body is a mere aUXiliary
to consciousness. It might be argued that the intoxicating quality in wine
originates when certain ingredients are combined in a fixed proportion.
Similarly, consciousness originates when the material elements are com-
bined in a definite proportion. In response, the Naiyayikas point out
that the intoxicating quality of wine is found in the smallest quantity of
wine, however, consciousness is never found when the material body is
divided and separated in parts, say, in an arm of the body, or a leg of the
body. In other words, material body cannot be the locus of conscious-
ness; it can only belong to a self.
14
The Naiyayikas hold that consciousness cannot be a property of the
senses either. The self is the experiencer in the tme sense of the term. In
our everyday lives, we experience such things "as 'table', 'a block of
ice', from different senses, which implies the existence of a coordinator
The Objectivist Theory 43
different from the senses of sight and touch. Senses have an instrumental
function; they are for the use of an agent, and this agent is the self.
Consciousness cannot be a property of the mind either because our
thoughts, ideas, and feelings change continuously, very much like the
changes one sees in one's body, and the mind could no more be the
substratum of consciousness than the body could. Consciousness cannot
be a quality of the mind,15 because only the self is a knower. The sense
organs, the outer and the inner, cannot be the knowers because they
possess dependent existence, whereas the self is independent.
Additionally, qualities such as desire, aversion, activity, pleasure, and
pain must belong to the same locus as consciousness, because the same
entity that cognizes a thing, also desires to acquire it or stay away from
it; it also acts to possess or discard it, and on attaining the desired goal
experiences pleasure. Since consciousness does not belong either to the
body, or to the senses, or to the mind, it must belong to the self.
Thus, the Naiyayikas conclude that consciousness is an attribute of
the self, which exists independently and is different from the body, the
senses, the mind, and consciousness. The self, on their theory, is eternal;
it cannot be produced or destroyed. Though consciousness is a quality
of the self, it nevertheless is not an essential quality of the self. This
explains why the self does not possess consciousness in deep sleep or
coma. The self may exist without consciousness but is, however, capable
of having consciousness when the appropriate causal conditions are
present, that is, when the self comes in contact with the mind, the mind
with the senses, and the senses with external objects. (These contacts
are needed in the case of all kinds of cognitions, including testimony
and inference.) In other words, the self, though eternal, is by itself
unconscious and thus not different from material objects such as table
and chair, excepting for the fact that the self alone is capable of haVing
consciousness.
The conception differs substantially from other
views, for example, the views of the Vedic adhyatmika or spiritual
systems such as Sarpkhya and Advaita Vedanta. In this context, we must
keep in mind a fundamental difference between the Nyaya and the
schools of Sarpkhya and Advaita Vedanta. For the Naiyayikas, the terms
, buddhi', 'upalabdhi', and 'jfiana' are synonymous. 16 On the Sarp.khya
and Advaita Vedanta view, on the other hand, buddhi is a modification
of prakrti; it is the first evolute of prakrti, it is the cosmic intelligence
(mahat), while 'jfiana' or consciousness is the nature of the self (or
'Knowledge' (for example, the perceiving of a pitcher) is a
44
Cit: Conscio1JSness
modification (vrftz) of buddbi, in which consciousness is reflected. The
Naiyayikas reject the above account of states, because on
their account there is no consciousness per se; there is indeed a
universal 'consciousness' that is instantiated in every cognitive state.
'Consciousness,' in short, stands for all particular cognitive states. Such
states-as perceiving, inferring, deSiring, recognizing, remembering,
etc.-are called either buddbi, jncma, or upalabdbi. These cognitive
states arise in a self when the appropriate causal conditions are present.
It is important to remember that the self, though a 'conscious' substance,
does not always and under all circumstances possess consciousness (as
already noted, it is not conscious when it is in a deep sleep, or in a
coma). This only means that the self can have consciousness, that the
ability to have consciousness essentially belongs to a self.
II
The issues whether consciousness is formless (nirakara) or has a form
(saMra) and whether it is of-an-object (savi!jaya) or objectless (izin.Jk;aya)
are enormously complicated. It is not possible to unpack the ramifications
of these issues in their entirety in this chapter. The fact that almost all
schools ofIndian philosophy have discussed these issues testifies to their
importance and makes my task all the more difficult. Rather than going
into the minute details of their arguments, I shall, for my present purposes,
highlight some of the key' points of the Nyaya conception vis-a-vis the
other schools of Indian philosophy, in the hope that this discussion will
help my readers understand better the Nyaya theory of consciousness.
In order to understand whether consciousness is nirakaraor sakara,
it is imperative that we understand what is meant by akara in this context.
'Akard refers to the specific arrangement of the parts of a thing. In this
sense, the external objects are said to have an akara, because they have
a shape and a form. The and the Mimarpsa, the realist
schools of Indian philosophy, which argue for the existence of external
objects, deny any form to consciousness .. The Yogacara Buddhists, on
the other hand, oppose the realist conception, and given that they deny
external objects, argue that the form belongs to consciousness. The
Buddhists argue that the perceptual knowledge, say, 'this is an elephant',
itself has the form of elephant, whereas the hold that
this perceptual knowledge in itself is formless. The Buddhists' position
conforms to their idealistic stance that the apparent form of the object is
really a form of consciousness, and when needed, they use their idealism
to substantiate their thesis that consciousness has a form. The Nyaya-
and the thesis conforms to its realism, because the
form that appears in consciousness or cognition does not, and cannot,
belong to that cognition, which in itself is formless and accordingly it
must belong to an object outside of knowledge. It is important to
emphasize that the issue-whether consciousness is formless or has a
form-is in the Indian philosophical discourse connected with the debate
between idealism and realism. Theories, for example, of the Nyaya and
schools, which regard consciousness as formless have to be
realistic, the object of consciousness on these accounts must fall outside
consciousness. On the other hand, a theory, for example, of the Buddhists,
which regards cognitions to have forms, may very well contend that the
objects which appear to be outside are really forms of consciousness.
It is interesting to note that although the mean by
'consciousness' only specific cognitive states-for example, seeing a
physical object, hearing sound-these specific cognitive states are
described as formless or nirakara. Consciousness of an elephant, for
example, could not have the akara of an elephant; it could only have
the elephant image. The mental picture of an elephant is like an elephant,
but the cognition of an elephant is not like an elephant. Cognition,
therefore, is not a mental picture. The cognition of an elephant and the
cognition of a horse differ not with regard to their internal content or
akara or imagery, but only insofar as one object is a horse and the other
object is an elephant. In themselves, apart from their objects and apart
from the souls in which they inhere, there is nothing to distinguish one
cognition from another. Consciousness of an elephant does not contain
. something like an elephant within it. So one possible translation of akara
is the cognitive content, the 'content' as distinguished from the object.
17
According to the standard analysis of knowledge in Western philosophy,
cognition of an elephant and cognition of a horse, quite apart from the
two objects that are out there in the world, differ also in the internal
structure of their cognitions, that is, in their content. This is to say, on
this theory, the cognition of an elephant has an 'elephant-content' and
the cognition of a horse the 'horse-content'. The Western epistemological
theories insist on the distinction between the object and the content
primarily because in some cases-for example, in the cases of non-
veridical cognition-the object may not be there, though something
appears in consciousness; in such cases what appears could only be the
content, and not the actual object.
The Nyaya-Vaise-?ika does not entertain this possibility, but rather
prevents this possibility by developing a the9ry of non-veridical
cognition,IB in which as in veridical cognitions, the so-called cognitive
contents are really objects out in the world. For the Naiyayikas, sense
contact with the object is the primary and indispensable condition of all
knowledge. They further maintain that the senses can be in contact not
only with their objects, qualities, and universals but also with their
absences. All perceptual knowledge can be expressed in the form of a
judgement, a subject with something predicated of it. A percept, such as
'a cow', really stands for a judgement. 'A cow,' for example, 'means an
object possessing the characteristic of cowness'. In the cases of perceptual
illusions, the sense comes in contact with the real object; however,
because of the presence of certain external and internal factors, it
is associated with the wrong characteristics, and the object is
misapprehended. In other words, the object which is elsewhere
(anyathil) now appears in front of US.
19
Consequently for the Nyaya-
Vaise-?ika, and also for the Bhana Mlmalp.sa,20 there is nothing within
consciousness which appears in consciousness. Everything that appears
in consciousness is really outside of it. As a matter of fact, one might
even want to say that in this theory, consciousness has no inside. The
Nyaya realism is based on it. Although it is itself inner in the sense that it
is grasped by the inner sense, it itself has no inner component or
constituent and so its being is totally exhausted by its reference to its
object, that is, by its intentionality.
The Nyaya conception that consciousness is not a substance
mandated that they reject the Buddhist account of consciousness as a
series of events. However, on the Nyaya account, consciousness is not
only not a substance; it is also not an action. There are those who argue
that a theory of consciousness as an action is needed to substantiate and
strengthen realism, because the idea of consciousness as an action
accounts for the difference between the object per se and the object as
known, that is, the difference between a vastu (the actual object) and
v i ~ y (the intentional content).21 The best-known exponent of this view
in Indian philosophy is the Bhatta Mlmalp.sa school of Indian philosophy.
They argue that a sound theory of epistemology must begin with the
distinction between the object per se and the same object as known. An
act has the power to account for this difference, and indeed brings about
this difference in the object under consideration. The act of knowing
transforms a mere object into a known object. A!iditionally, the Bhana
Mlmalp.sakas argue that since the cognitive act itself is not known when
the object is known, but is rather inferred, what is initially apprehended
The Objectivist Theory of Nyaya- a i s e ~ i k a 47
is neither the cognition nor the object, but something other than these
two. Accordingly, they question the Nyaya-Vaise.;;ika thesis that
consciousness is not an action. Why, they ask, must we define an action
in terms of motion in space? Why not leave room for exactly the kind of
action that consciousness exemplifies?
The theory that consciousness is an act on the part of the soul is not
free from difficulties, the primary one being that an action must result in
some effect or some change in the object on which it is exercised. It is
not obvious what changes consciousness does bring about in its object.
The only possible change could be that the object, which was unknown,
becomes known, or that of which I was unaware, I now become aware.
But this change is not a change in the object, one might reply; if at all, it
is a change in the soul of the person who now has a new state of
consciousness. Therefore, if consciousness must be regarded as an act,
it must be so in very special sense of the act Ckriya). But in what sense?
It is here that the idea of the intentional acts of Western
phenomenology comes to our rescue. By an act, a phenomenologist
understands not an activity in the familiar sense, but any experience,
which is directed towards an object. But this is already recognized in the
Nyaya-Vaise.;;ika school, even though they regard consciousness as a
quality. The truth, therefore, seems to be, apart from the applicability of
the precise categories that they have, that consciousness seems to be
both a quality and an act, it both seems to inhere in the soul and refer to
an object other than itself. The Prabhakara MimaqJ.sakas seem to have
held such a view, that is, consciousness is both a gUfJa and a karma. As
belonging to a soul, consciousness is a gUfJa, as manifesting an object, it
is a kriya. They are simply two aspects of the nature of consciousness.
The Naiyayikas do not subscribe to this conception. For them,
consciousness is a quality, and it is distinguished from other qualities by
being of-an-object.
Though consciousness is a quality, it is different from other qualities
such as pleasure and pain. Whereas consciousness is always cognitive,
pleasure, pain, etc., are not in themselves cognitive; they are affective.
Such qualities as pleasure and pain, although intentional like
consciousness, derive their intentionality from that consciousness which
presents the objects. For example, in the instance 'I am happy about X',
the object of my happiness, X, is first an object of cognition or
consciousness, and then through it an object of happiness. It is important
to remember here that for the Naiyayikas, knowing is a temporal act
directed towards an object. It is expressed in such perceptual
22
judgements
as 'this is a table'. Here, the table is the object of knowledge. On their
view, such a cognition (vyavasaya) reveals only the object-it does not
reveal either the cognizer or the cognition. This primary cognition is
revealed by a second introspective awareness in the form '1 know the
table', or '1 have knowledge of the table'. This second cognition-the
cognition of the primary cognition-is termed anuvyavasaya. Whereas
the object of the primary cognition is the table, the direct object of the
second cognition is the primary cognition, the indirect objects being the
self and the object of the primary cognition. The Naiyayikas further argue
that the anuvyavasaya of the primary act of cognition is infallible and
intrinsically true, a position that makes sense from a phenomenological
perspective. Both Vacaspati and Udayana reiterate this point: 'No one
who does not have knowledge introspects "1 am knowing", no one who
has the introspection "1 am knowing a silver" when in fact he has
knowledge of a shell. '23
Thus, the Naiyayika account of consciousness is very different from
the Advaita account, in which it is argued that when a subject apprehends
an object, the object undoubtedly is revealed; however, it is not the only
thing that is revealed. It is accompanied by the apprehenSion of
apprehension. When 1 say, 'this is a table', 1 not only know the table, but
also know that I know that this is a table. The two apprehensions occur
simultaneously. 'This is a table' is an instance of perception; however,
the perception itself is apprehended by the witness-consciousness.
24
1
shall discuss this concept in the chapter on the Advaita account of
consciousness. Suffice it to note here that consciousness on the Advaita
account reveals or manifests objects; it is svaprakasa, as well as
svataqsiddha (self-established). It cannot be apprehended by any of the
six means of true cognition, because the objects known by them
presuppose the existence of the self; thus they cannot be used to prove
the existence of the self or consciousness. It cannot be known by another
consciousness either, because such reasoning will lead to an infinite
regress of consciousness. Nor can it be known by itself. It is apprehended
by the witness-consciousness, which cannot be an object of knowledge,
and thus it does not become the content of true cognition (pramav4aya);
it is the very condition of the possibility of knowing anything.
The self is the subject and cannot become both the subject and the
object at once. Moreover, the self as the 'I' is not the real self. The real
self is pure consciousness; it is not consciousness of anything. The
opponents, the Naiyayikas, argue that since the witness-consciousness
is not accessible through any of the recognized means, it cannot be known
by any of the pramar.zas; it is not established by the scriptures either; the
self-luminous witness-consciousness, therefore, does not exist.
25
III
The above discussion leads me to another important issue, the issue that
has preoccupied the Indian tradition dating back to the era of the
Upani-?ads. It has to do with the self-luminosity of consciousness. We
must determine what is being cognized in a cognition. Is a cognition
cognized when an object is being cognized? Or, is it the case that cognition
is cognized by a subsequent cognition after the object has been cognized?
To formulate the questions differently: is a state of consciousness
(perception, idea, etc.) known to the cognizer at the moment of its very
inception? Or, is it cognized subsequently by another cognition? In other
words, is a state of consciousness merely intentional, that is, object-
directed?
Indian philosophers' responses roughly fall under three groups:
1. Consciousness or a cognitive state only shows its object, but
not itself. Cognition is known by a subsequent cognition, which
objectifies the primary cognition.
2. A cognitive event, though letting its own object be known, is
itself known by an inferential cognition.
3. A state of consciousness not only reveals the object but also
itself. Knowing an object, in other words, implies eo ipso
knowing that one knows.
The first is the Nyaya view, the second the BhaHa view, and the
third is shared by the Buddhists, the Prabhakara Mimarp.sa, the
Visi-?tadvaita, and the Advaita Vedanta schools of Indian philosophy.
Given that the first and the third represent the two extreme positions on
)
the issue, and the second lies in between the two, I shall begin with the
second, and then return to the controversy between the remaining two.
For the Bhanas, consciousness is not self-luminous. In other words,
it is not directly and immediately accessible. It is essentially an act
(vyapara). They argue that, in apprehending an object, consciousness
or cognition does not apprehend itself. Consciousness or cognition is of
the nature of light only insofar as it illuminates external objects though it
depends on some activity to manifest it. Though consciousness illumines
the external object, it is not capable of illuminating itself. It depends on
another act for its illumination. So when theBhanas claim that
consciousness illuminates, they are simply refef"ring to its ability to
illuminate external objects, and not itself. Any act of cognition consists
of four factors: the subject, the object, the instrument, and the result of
cognition. Let us take the act of cooking rice, in which the cook is the
agent, rice the object, the fire the instrument, and the cooked rice is the
result. Just as the act of cooking produces 'cookedness' or the softness
in the rice that is cooked, similarly cognition arises in the self and the
cognizedness (jiiatata) is produced in the object known. We infer the
existence of its cause, that is, cognition, from its effect, that is,
cognizedness. In short, cognition or consciousness is inferred from the
cognizedness of its object.
For the Naiyayikas, as we have already seen, a state of consciousness,
while manifesting its object, does not manifest itself. Ontologically,
cognition for the Naiyayikas is a quality of the self. This quality, a product
of various causal factors, originates under special conditions and from
an epistemological perspective, refers beyond itself to an object.
Consciousness, better yet cognition, does not cognize itself-it reveals
its object Accordingly, cognition is related to the by the
relation of v4ayata, that is, by making it an object. In response to the
question of how a cognition cognizes itself, the Naiyayikas maintain that
a cognition is cognized in a secondary act of retrospection. The primary
act does not cognize itself but only the external object, for example, a
pitcher, in 'this is a pitcher' (ayarrz gharaq). However, the cognition 'I
know that this is a pitcher' is different. It succeeds the first cognition and
is called 'after (anu) cognition (vyavasaya)'.
The third view-of the Buddhists, the Prabhakara l1unal1lsa, the
and the Advaita Vedanta-holds that consciousness is self-
luminous which amounts to arguing that consciousness reveals not only
the object but also itself. In short, a state of consciousness eo ipso knows
itself, as well as its object. Notwithstanding the differences among them,
these positions may be formulated as follows:
For the Yogacara Buddhists, ideas alone are ultimately real. They
argue that at its very occurrence a cognition simply reveals itself, and
the object that appears in it is simply its form. The things that allegedly
exist in the outside world can be experienced through mental processes.
Of the three factors-the knower, the object known, and the
knowledge-the last one alone is taken to be true. All we ever perceive
are our own mental forms, and even appears to itself
as an external object. Consciousness' is nothing but an ever-changing
stream. The forms of the objects of knowledge, which any cognition
assumes at any particular instant, are not determined by the reality of
the external world but by ideas. Accordingly, the differences between
cognitions of a wall and a pitcher are mental in character. Independent
existence of external objects cannot be demonstrated. Because our
knowledge of objects in the form of ideas and of the objects is presented
simultaneously, they must be one and the same. In other words, no object
is ever experienced apart from consciousness; and no consciousness
apart from its object. Therefore, the two-better yet the allegedly two-
must be in reality one and the same thing.26
The Pdbhakara Miiuarpsa argues that cognition, by its very being,
reveals its object as object, its knower as knower, and itself as the
knowledge. This threefold manifestation takes place simultaneously with
the occurrence of knowledge, so that every knowledge has the form 'I
know such and such object'. For the Prabhakara self-luminous
consciousness illumines itself(sva samvit), the knower (aham samvit),
and the object (v4aya samvit). Consciousness, like the light of a lamp,
in one flash illumines these three factors. For them, consciousness is
self-luminous, not the atman. Both the external objects and the atman
are not luminous. Thus a cognition is luminous and it does not need
another cognition to manifest it.
Ramanuja,27 known as 'ardhasvaprakasavadi', argues that
consciousness manifests itself but only in certain conditions, not to all
individuals at all times and under all conditions. Consciousness at the
time of manifesting its object (v4ayaprakasanabelayam), reveals itself
to its own subject, that is, to the cognizer (svasrayarrz prati). However,
it does not reveal itself to another subject. In other words, 'consciousness
manifests itself by its own being at the present moment to its own
substrate' .28 In concrete terms, it amounts to arguing that consciousness
at times is self-luminous, whereas at other times it is not. In other words,
to say that for Ramanuja is self-luminous is misleading, if
not false.
The Advaita Vedanta school argues that consciousness is self-
luminous. Using the criterion of' badha' , 29 usually translated as 'sublation'
or 'subration', Sarpkara arrives at his ontological hierarchy. He argues
that anything that in principle can be negated has lesser degree of reality
than that which it is replaced by. Given this, to say that pure consciousness
itself cannot be sublated by anything amounts to saying that it cannot
be denied or disvalued by anything else; no experience can contradict
it. He makes a distinction among three levels:
3o
paramarthika, the level
of pure consciousness; vyavaharika, the level of empirical consciousness;
and asat, unreality or non-being.
To begin with unreality, it does not have any objective counterpart.
In other words, it never becomes an object of consciousness.
Consciousness at the empirical level is sublated by the experience of
pure consciousness or the brahman, which cannot be sublated by any
experience whatsoever. The Advaitins hold that empirical consciousness
in reality is pure consciousness as conditioned by the appropriate mental
modification (antaqkarar;a vrttz). Although the objects are manifested
by pure consciousness via the mental modifications, a mental
modification itself is directly manifested by the witness-consciousness.
A mental modification does not require another mental modification to
make it manifest. So, in a sense, an empirical cognition is self-luminous,
and there is no need of cognition of cognition.
Notwithstanding the differences among these four different accounts
of the self-luminosity of consciousness, they all maintain that, 'I know'
accompanies all states of consciousness, whereas according to the first,
a state of consciousness, for example, 'this is an elephant', is different
from 'I know this is an elephant'. Let us quickly review the ramifications
of these conceptions in order to assess how the issue of self-luminosity
of consciousness ties to the two issues discussed earlier--of intentionality
and form or shape of consciousness-and the sort of ontology it leads to
or presupposes.
For the Buddhists, consciousness not only manifests itself, but as
stated earlier, it also has a form of its own. So, when I say, 'this is an
elephant', the form of 'elephant' that appears must be the form of
consciousness, and given that they deny the existence of external objects,
the intentionality of consciousness points to the fact that the cognition of
elephant is really a state of consciousness, having' elephant' for its forn'l.
Prabhakara argues that cognition is self-luminous and there is no
need of cognition of cognition. It amounts to arguing that consciousness,
a quality of the self, is luminous; it is independently lighted; the self,
however, is devoid of it and depends on consciousness for its
manifestation.
Ramanuja, on the other hand, ties the intentionality of consciousness
and self-luminous character of consciousness in such a way that
consciousness manifests its presence only to its owner, only in the
context of manifesting its object. Ramanuja argues for a basic relationship
between the self-luminosity and its intentionality in such a way that
consciousness manifests its own presence to its owner, only at the time
of manifesting an object. It is worth noting here that Ramanuja argues
for the fundamental relation of inseparability (aprthak-siddhi), which is
neither identity nor identity and difference, but which welds two
substances, or a substance and a quality, into one qualified (viSi!jta) unity.
In many respects, it resonates the Vaise-?ika relation of inherence
(samavaya) , though the idea of dependence is stronger than what the
relation of inherence exemplifies.
The Nyaya, on the other hand, emphatically denies self-luminosity
to consciousness and stresses its intrinsic intentionality. The system does
not admit any movement on the part of the soul, and so the two, that
atman and consciousness, are not fundamentally related. In Nyaya
ontology, padarthas possess being in some sense or the other.
Accordingly, each padartha has being of its own. Ainong these categories,
the three (substance, quality, and action) are primary, and the remaining
categories inhere in one of the three primary categories. So the Nyaya
required a relationship which ties these entities together while preserving
their differences. With the help of the relation of samavaya, the
Naiyayikas succeed in achieving a pluralistic ontology and a conception
of the world in which substance and samavaya enjoy an elite status.
Consciousness, they argue, is of-an-object, and there is no need to
postulate it as an act that performs the function of altering its object.
Consciousness under any condition is not self-manifesting, thus in
cognition only the object is given, not the cognition. According to Nyaya
realism, in the example, 'this is an elephant', only the object' elephant'
is given, without the apprehension 'I know this is an elephant'. For them,
consciousness is neither inferred from the cognizedness (the Bhatta
view), nor is cognized by itself (Vedanta and Yogacara views), but is
cognized by another cognition. Consciousness is paraprakasa, it is not
self-luminous. So, the Naiyayikas conclude that a conception of cognition
as self-luminous is not necessary; it does not serve any practical purpose
whatsoever. I
The Advaita Vedanta, which regards consciousness as both formless
and self-manifesting, holds that consciousness per se is not intentional;
it does not have an object or belong to an ego; intentionality is rooted in
ignorance, on account of which consciousness appears to be of an object
and of an ego. The Advaita Vedanta severely criticizes the Naiyayika
conception of the relation between atman and consciousness, and argues
that the relation between the two must be either of identity or of
difference. Sarp.kara also puts their doctrine of categories under
54
Cit: Consciousness
devastating attack. On the of there
are many different types of real entItles wh1c:;h, though mdependently
real are related by 'inherence' (samavaya). Sarpkara-after raising the
as to the sense in which a substance and its quality, or a
substance and its actions are, though inseparable yet distinct entities-
concludes that the Vaise.;;ika thesis is untenable. Sarpkara argues that in
the fmal analysis all these entities are identical. The 'blue' and the 'lotus'-
in 'the blue lotus'-are fundamentally identical, because the nature of a
quality does not differ from the nature of the substance. The same
substance, depending on the perspective, is called by different names,
just as the same Bina Gupta is sometimes referred to as 'the mother of
her daughter', 'the wife of her husband', 'the teacher of students', etc.31
In reality, the gur;.a and an action have their being in the substance
(dravyatmakata gur;.asya). Accordingly, Sarpkara concludes that there
is only one category, namely, substance, and only one relation, namely,
'tadatmya' (' being its essence'), a form of identity that 'tolerates'
differences (bhedasah4r;.u). Thus in 'the blue lotus', the relation between
the colour 'blue' and the 'lotus' is not inherence of a quality in a substance,
but tadatmyawhichis not mere identity, but 'the relation of having that
. (tat) as one's own self'. The consciousness and the self are the same; it
is the unsublatable principle of all manifestation.
Sarpkara then goes on to demonstrate that even the category of
substance cannot be coherently stated. It entails' difference', it could be
the difference that exists among substances, difference of a substance
from its qualities and actions, difference between the particular and the
universals that it instantiates, and so on. The Advaita philosophers put
the category of 'difference' under devastating attack and point out its
inherent inconsistencies, for example, by showing how it gives rise to
infinite regress and self-contradiction. By so doing, they call into question
the ontological status and determinability of the category of 'difference'.
They raise the question: is difference a relation or a quality? If X is different
from Y, is X's difference from Y a quality of X? If so, it is then 'different
from X itself. The same holds good ofY' s difference from X. If difference
is a relation between X and Y, one may ask, how is this relation itself
related to X and to Y? By demonstrating that difference is not a real
category, that it involves infinite regress on all counts, they demolish the
Vaise.;;ika doctrine of categories and conclude that these categories are
real only phenomenally; they are not real ontologically. These categories
function in the empirical-conceptual context but not on the level of
reality.
Whether consciousness is taken to be self-luminous or not has
important consequences for a system's ontology. If consciousness is not
taken to be self-luminous, it will result in a theory of consciousness in
which consciousness would not be able to claim ontological
independence and elite status. Self-luminosity of consciousness implies
its immediacy thereby dissolving the subject-object distinction, which,
in tum, leads us.to a conception of consciousness in which it is existent,
undifferentiated, and self-luminous. I shall revisit some of these issues
in the chapters on Yogacara and Advaita Vedanta.
N
The theory characterized by me as an objectivist theory
has features which do. not quite conform to an empirical account of
consciousness. I shall bring to the attention of my readers two such
features. These are its position that consciousness is a quality of the soul
and its thesis that consciousness has no form of its own. Both need some
explanation.
To consider the first: the soul oratman on the view
is certainly not a material substance but whether it is a spiritual entity or
not is not entirely clear. Although consciousness on this theory requires
the mediation of the body, it is nevertheless not a property of the body,
but of the soul, which is eternal. Consciousness itself, however, is not
eternal; it is subject to origination and cessation. Consciousness, though
a property of the soul, is not an essential property of it. Thus, it is not
obvious how or in what sense such an entity can be said to be spiritual.
Consciousness arises in the soul when the soul is in conjunction with a
body, the sense organs are in conjunction with some appropriate object
or other, and the mind or the inner sense is in conjunction with the
sense organ. What arises is a specific si:ate of such as
visual, tactual, or auditdry perception. Having only momentary existence,
consciousness is a process of events, each of which arises, exists, and
then perishes. The objects of consciousness, although they are-as in
any empirical theory-things of the world, are not only familiar sensory
objects; they may be universals, or souls, or given suitable abilities-
even atoms, or God. So we see that the Nyaya account is not entirely
objectivist; it is certainly different from the account that one finds in the
Ciirvaka school, which incidentally is the only Indian philosophical system
that offers a completely empirical theory of consciousness, describing
56
Cit: Consciousness
consciousness as a product of objective conditions (some of which are
material), as inhering in the body, and as ceasing to be with the death of
the body. '
The above account of consciousness notwithstanding, the question
arises: is the soul an object of empirical cognition? Again, on the Nyaya-
Vaisei?ika theory, in such introspective judgements as 'I am happy', 'I
am in pain', 'I am thinking', the indexical 'I' refers to the speaker's soul,
but it is not the pure soul as such that is being known but rather the soul
as qualified by a mental state. The pure soul still remains transcendent
and in its state of liberation freed from the body, it is not even the seat of
consciousness. This whole picture does indeed make consciousness
dependent on the body and its relation to the soul, but in this relational
complex, the soul, although an object in a very general sense, is far from
being an empirical object.
The second point mentioned above concerns the question whether
consciousness has a form or akara. This thesis of formlessness has serious
implications for those who subscribe to it. It leads them to a realistic
metaphysics, for as pointed out above, everything that appears in
consciousness must be outside of it. I shall not pursue the issue of realism
versus idealism here; this issue, though it falls within the purview of
metaphysics, does not concern me here. The question that the Naiyayikas
must answer may be formulated as follows: how is this conception of
consciousness-as formless, contentless, medium of reference to objects
in the world-compatible with the picture of consciousness as an
objective phenomenon which is caused by the objective conditions and
which itself is the cause of objective effects? It is imperative that both
cause and effect be determinate entities, having their determinate nature
in themselves. The determinacy of the entity deSignated by the expression
'my cognition of that elephant' lies in the determinacy of the thing
designated by the two expressions 'my' and 'that elephant'. But these
two entities, on the Nyaya account, do not belong to that consciousness;
they were there even before that cognition arose, and when the cognition
arises, these two entities, namely, my soul and that elephant, do not
become constituents of my cognition-they are out there in the world. It
is, therefore, difficult to understand how the cognition itself could be a
determinate entity so that it could be caused by, and be the cause of,
determinate entities. What may be said to have been caused or brought
about are not the mere formless cognition but the total entity 'my
cognition of that elephant'. But how could this be one entity when my
soul and that elephant, having their own independent existence before
and after that cognition's existence, are not literally constituents of that
The Objectivist Theory 57
cognition. All three (my soul, that elephant, and the cognition) do not
form a whole. What are the constituent elements constituents of? In what
sense, even if cognition has no content, the Nyaya-Vaise1?ika undertakes
and gives an analysis of cognition?3Z The point is that for an analysis of
cognition, especially for the sort of analysis that the Nyaya offers, a
cognition, even if formless, must have such elements as prakarata,
and sarrzsargata. We then see that a purely objectivist theory
of consciousness as well as of cognition is not possible on the Nyaya
account. If these elements are located in the object, the analysis is not of
the cognition but rather of the object. So, even if a cognition is formless,
one can venture the suggestion that it has contents, which permit logical
analysis. Such a theory refuses to be accommodated within a purely
empirical framework.
v
Before concluding this chapter, 1 shall discuss the most important Nyaya-
Vaise1?ika thesis, the pivot around which their entire objectivist account
revolves. This account depends on the claim that consciousness itself is
known in the same way as any other objeCt is known. We need to consider
this claim, its supporting arguments, ramifications, and its weaknesses
very carefully. The theory may be schematically represented thus:
1. If C
1
is a state of consciousness having for its object 01' C
1
by
its definition can manifest or make known only 01' and not
anything other than it.
2. Therefore C
1
cannot make itself manifest.
3. If it could manifest what is not its object it could manifest any-
thing whatsoever, in which case, the awareness of a pitcher
could also be the awareness of a mountain.
4. Therefore, it IS most reasonable to insist that C
1
can only mani-
fest Oland not itself.
How then is C
1
known? On the Nyaya-Vaise1?ika theory we need an act
of introspection or retrospection Clooking back)-an anuvyavasaya for
this purpose. This amounts to saying that C
1
is followed by a new act of
consciousness C
z
whose object is C
1
' If C
1
has the form 'this is a cat', C
z
would have the form 'I know that this is a cat'. The actual mechanism of
this is difficult to describe, but it would most probably run like this:
58
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Cit: Consciousness
C arises at the instant t
l
; at it exists; at t3 it perishes.
1
C can exercise its function of manifesting 0 l' only when it
1
is--i.e., at t
z
'
At t
3
, C
l
ceases to be; but only at t3 can C
z
then arise.
But this means that C
z
arising at t
3
, exists at t
4

C
z
can, therefore, exercise its function of manifesting C
l
at t
4

But at t
4
, C
l
does not exist.
So C
z
cannot be a perceptual knowledge of C
l
, it can only be a
memory of it. I
But how can a memory of something be taken as possible, if it is
supposed to be of something of which we were not even aware in the
fIrst place? On the theory we are not aware of C1' al-
though C
l
is aware of a 1 prior to C
z
. So how could C
z
be a memory of C
l
?
The situation may be schematically represented thus:
t
l

S 13
t4 ts
C
l
C
l
C
1
arising existing perishing
Czexisting C
z
perishing

t

manifesting 0] C
z
arising manifesting C
1
[but C] does not exist now]
In this context, I would like to note two objections against the Nyiiya-
objectivist thesis. One of these is not that strong and can be
dispensed with easily. It is often held that the account
leads to a regresuum ad infinitum. This argument is not as strong as it
appears to be, for the Naiyiiyikas need the succeeding C only if the pre-
ceding C is to be known for that purpose. In other words, C
z
is required
if C
1
is to be known. But C
z
itself need not be known. Therefore, there is
no infinite regress. On the contrary, there is a general epistemic rule that
the conditions of outer perception are stronger than the conditions of
inner perception. So if after C
z
the conditions of an outer visual percep-
tion present themselves, C
3
would not arise and the supposed outer per-
ception would intervene.
The second is a strong objection to contend with. If C
z
is an inner
perception of Cl' and if it does not arise automatically but requires the
desire to know C1' it is inexplicable how there could be a desire to know
C
l
' when CIon the theory is utterly unknown in the beginning. You do
not desire to know something which was utterly unknown, you can only
The Objectivist Tbeory oj Nyaya- 59
desire to know something better than the way it was known earlier. So
the possibility of inner perception, the so-called anuvyavasaya, requires
that one is already familiar with C
1
, although it is quite possible that one
may want to take a closer look at it.
The Advaitins criticize the theory of anuvyavasaya and point out
that even if for the sake of argument it is assumed that cognition is
manifested by another cognition, the question arises: does the second
cognition arise when the first cognition is existent or after it has been
destroyed? The first option is impossible, because on
thesis, two cognitions are not simultaneous, they are successive. The
alternative too does not hold, because if the second cognition arises
after the first one, what will the second cognition cognize, when the first
cognition has ceased to exist?
If it were argued that the earlier cognition, while perishing, is
manifested by the latter cognition, the question would arise as to what is
meant by the' state of perishing'. The Advaitins ask: 'Does the state of
perishing of a cognition imply its existence or non-existence, or something
which is different from both? If it implies "existence", there would be
simultaneity of two cognitions; if "non-existence", how can a cognition,
itself non-existent, be a perception (of the other)? If "neither existent nor
nor-existent", it will be indescribable, and will not be able to establish
any knowledge. '33 They argue that in the absence of the witness-
consciousness, there will be no way to apprehend a cognition.
Thus, it seems that either (1) the metaphysical thesis that states of
consciousness exist only for one moment (besides the moments of
origination and perishing) has to be revised, or (2) the epistemological
thesis that a state of consciousness can directly manifest what is co-present
with it, and not what is just gone, has to be revised. The former is done
by the Vedantins, who regard consciousness as not subject to origination
and destruction at all; the latter alternative is chosen by Husserl when he
argues that what is immediately apprehended is not merely the now,
but also the just past. If one retains the temporality of consciousness,
I
one needs HusserI's theory to make possible the awareness of awareness.
In the absence of such an account, the Advaita theory, which distinguishes
between the ever-present, unchanging principle of awareness on the
one hand, and the changing modifications of the inner sense, or
antaqkararJa, on the other, will serve our purpose. Thus it seems that
the objectivist theories of consciousness, in the long run, cannot be
coherently formulated. Here, I cannot go into the issue whether a
Husserlian type of account of time-consciousness is available in Indian
60
Cit: Consciousness
philosophy. If anywhere, perhaps in Buddhism we may look for it. So
the Yogacara Buddhists' account is what we have immediately available,
and we shall tum our attention to it in the next ehapter.
Notes
1. The Nyaya school most likely had its origin in its attempt to formulate
canons of argument for use in debates, which pelVaded the Indian philosophico-
logical scene for a long time. The Nyaya-Sutras probably date back from the
third century BCE. These sutras were commented on by Vatsyayana (fifth
century CE). Various authors such as Uddyotkara (seventh century CE), V:kaspati
(ninth century CE), Jayanta (tenth century CE), and Udayana (tenth century CE)
develop the system. By the time of Udayana, the school of modem Nyaya,
technically called Navya-Nyaya, was being formed, which received its final form
in Gaiigesa's TattvacintammJi. The Naiyayikas accept the ontology of the
school, and given that these two schools are closely allied in their
realistic ontology, they are generally studied together.
2. 'Mlmarpsa' literally means investigation or inquiry into the scriptural
texts. It construes sCriptural rules as a body of injunctions rather than as religious
statements about God, the soul, and the world. As a school ofIndian philosophy,
Mlmarpsa undertakes a systematic study of the Brahmal),as (guidelines for the
performance of sacrifices) and subordinates the other parts of the Vedas (relating
to hymns in praise of various deities and philosophic interpretations) to them.
Vedanta, generally referred to as Uttara MImarpsa, focuses its attention on the
last (uttara) section of the Vedas, that is, the which provide the
philosophic interpretation. A distinction is generally made between two schools
of MImarpsa, Prabhakara M""lffiarpsa and Bhana M""lffiarpsa. The two exponents
of these schools are Pabhakara and Kumarila respectively. The writings of these
two individuals are the primary sources of our knowledge of the philosophies
of these two schools.
For a short and incisive analysis of the history of this school, see
P.v. Kane, A Brief Sketch of the Puroa-Mima1?1sa System (Poona: Aryabhushan
Press, 1924).
3. Gautama takes the term 'object' to signify three kinds of objects in the
Nyaya-Sutra (henceforth NS): the physical objects (e.g., table, chair, pitcher;
3.1.1); specific objects (e.g., colour, hard, soft; 1.1.14; 3.1.2; 3.1.58); and internal
objects (e.g., pleasure and pain; 1.1.10).
4. In the VaiSe;;ika pluralistic ontology, inherence (samavaya) is the
ontological glue, which welds together entities belonging to different categories
thereby creating a unified world. Etymologically the term' samavaya' signifies
coming together closely, and accordingly denotes an 'intimate union' between
two things making them inseparable in such a way that they cannot be separated
without themselves being destroyed. Annaqlbhana defines samavaya as 'a
The Objectivist Theory of Nyaya-
61
permanent connection existing between two things that are found inseparable' .
Tarka-Sarrtgraha of Annarrtbhatta with D'ipika and Govardhana's Nyaya-
Bodhinl, trans. Yashwant Vasudev Athalye, Sanskrit and Prakrit Series, no. 55
(Bombay: R.N. Dandekar, 1963), sec. 8, 96. Hereafter this edition will be cited
as TSDNB.
The relation of inherence (samavaya) unifies two different things such
as substance and attributes, substance and karma, substance and universal, a
whole (substance) and the parts that constitute it, and an ultimate individuator
(vise$a) with the ultimately indivisible entity to which it belongs. Samavaya,
the argue, is an eternal relation which renders the various
categories into an inseparable whole (ayutasiddha) , notwithstanding the
differences that exist among them.
5. See, Vatsyayana's commentary on the NS, 1.1.9.
6. NS, 1.1.9.
7. NS, 1.1.10.
8. A gUlJa, often translated as 'quality', means that which is non-
independent and non-prirriary (apradhana). Thus, a gUlJa can only reside in a
substance, and not by itself. Universals, for example, 'horse-ness' can only exist
in a substance, in this case, a particular horse, so a universal is like a gUlJa.
However, a gUlJa is a particular, which may exemplify a universal. Thus the
black colour of 'this black shirt' is a particular quality, but exemplifies the
universal 'blackness'. Additionally, Vaise9ikas argue that a gUlJa cannot possess
another gUlJa, with one exception, namely, number, which though a gUlJa on
the theory, may be ascribed to a set of qualities (e.g., 'black' and 'red'
are two colours).
9. NS, 1.1.10.
10. The dravya, that is, a 'thing' or a 'substance' is defined as the locus of
qualities (gUlJas) and actions (karmas), as well as the material cause ('inherent
cause') of effects. It is that in which the effect inheres. Only a dravya can serve
as the samavayi karalJa or a material cause.
11. NS, 1.1.18; BhZl$ya and Varttikarrt on it.
12. NS, 1.1.11, defines body as the locus of three things: activity (ce$ta) ,
sense organs (indriya) and object (artha). This definition needs some
explanation. Vatsyayana ,explains' ce$ta' as any activity that is intended to attain
what is good and to avoid that which is harmful. Activity does not belong to
non-living objects, say, a pitcher, it can only belong to the body of a finite soul
(ftva). Similarly, the sense organs only belong to a body. Finally, the sutra
asserts that the body is the locus of the object (artha) of the senses. Here the
term 'artha' does not refer to the objects themselves, but to the pleasures and
pains that the senses bring about. These pleasures and pains belong to the
body.
13. The period from the sixth century or earlier saw the development of
philosophical idealism, logical fatalism, and anti-religious ideas, generally known
as materialism or Carvaka, whose origins can be traced as far back as the l!g Veda.
No original writings of this school exist. The much later seventeenth-century
Tattvopaplavasi1J1ha ('Lion assaulting all principles of reality') is the only extant
work of this school. It is a polemical work directed against all the Vedic schools
ofIndian philosophy. Materialism is also known as lokayata, that is, the doctrine
that only this world exists: there is no world beyond it. See Jayarasi Bhana's
Tattvopaplavasi1J1ha, trans. S.N. Shastri and S.K. Saksena, eds, Sukhalalji Saghavi
and Rasiklal C. Parikh, Gaekwad Oriental Series, 7 (Baroda: Oriental Institute,
1940).
14. NS. 3.2.35--6.
15. NS, 3.2.19.
16. NS, 1.1.15.
17. In order to do that, we need to say something like the following: a
cognition has an intentional structure, form, or content, but no real structure.
J.N. Mohanty, in his work Reason and Tradition, attempts to preserve the
integrity of 'both the realist's and the idealist's positions, without having to
decide between their metaphysical positions, i.e., realism and idealism. Instead
of the word akara, which was rightly suspected by the realist as meaning a real
form, we shall use the word prakara (qualifier), picking up suggestions from
the later Nyaya writings. We shall say, consciousness is saprakaraka, that is, it
always has a qualifier, i.e. an intentional and logical structure, in spite of being
formless (nirakara) in the standard sense. This would explain why the Nyaya,
while insisting on the contentless or formless character of a state of
consciousness, nevertheless, proceeds to give elaborate logical analysis of it
(and not merely of the sentence which expresses it), p. 40.
18. The aim of Nyaya theory is to demonstrate that error, like truth, has an
objective referent. It is neither perception of non-existence (asatkhyatt) nor
non-knowledge (akhyatt)j it is just wrong perception. To explain the erroneous
cognition of a silver, for example, the Naiyayikas assume a relation of identity
between the object before us and the remote silver. The silver cognized in an
illusion is not unreal, because then it would not be perceived at all. The relation
of inherence that exists between the silver and the silverness also is apprehended
in the 'this' and 'silverness'. The silver perceived in a jewellery store sometime
in the past is perceived through Jnana l a ~ a 1 J a sannikar.;a, one of the extra-
empirical contacts recognized by the Naiyayikas. Thus the shell is mistaken for
the silver. Falsity consists in associating silver with the shell where it does not
exist. Neither of them is unreal. All knowledge claims, irrespective of whether
true or false, are referential. It is only the false prediction of 'that' as 'what' (Le.,
silver) which is corrected subsequently, but never the 'that' itself.
19. For the Nyaya analysis, see TSDNB, 221-32.
20. The Bhanas, in their theory of error, known as viparita-khyati, argue
that all knowledge is intrinsically valid and that the error is one of omission, not
commission. In the erroneous judgement, 'this is silver', both the shell and the
silver are separately real, though the relation between 'the two is not. The shell
is misperceived as silver. Error consists in wrongly apprehending the shell as
silver, which in fact it is not. In error, on account of some defect in the causes of
knowledge, two cognitions are welded together, and corrected by a subsequent
. sublating judgement. However, each of the cognitions is valid.
21. V4aya, the intentional object of thought, is different from the actual
object (i.e., vastu). From an epistemological point of view, the object is neither
true nor false. Rather, what is true or false is the act of judging in.which we
either affirm or deny the actuality of an object. This distinction is significant,
because in illusion, say, shell-silver, the real object never appears, and what
appears as me content is later cancelled by right knowledge. Thus, it is not the
object per se, but rather the content, which is said to be true or false in
knowledge.
In short, in knowledge the object is the content present in it. As long as
one keeps in mind this distinction, no harm is done by using object and content
interchangeably, as I have done.
22. For the Naiyayikas, perception is cognition that arises from the contact
of a sense orgjan with an object, is not itself linguistic, is not erroneous, and is
well ascertained jiiimarrz avyapadesyarrz
avybhicari vyavasayatmakarrz NS. 1.1.4. The self, the mind, sense
organs, objects, and particular kinds of contact between them are necessary
conditions for perception. In other words, unless the self is in contact with the
manas, manas with the sense organs, and the sense organs with the object, no
perception can arise. All knowledge is revelation of objects, and the contact of
the senses with an object is not metaphorical but literal.
The Naiyayikas articulate the definition of perception in terms of sense-
object contact. This implies that perception as a form of valid knowledge
originates and is caused by sense stimulation. This definition follows the
etymological meaning of the term which means 'present before
eyes or any other sense organs', signifying direct or immediate knowledge. In
short, perception is a cognition that is always of an object. The cognition of
substances like tables and chairs is known as an external perception; of pleasure
and pain as internal perceptions. Gautama further adds that perception is
avyapadesya (not impregnated by words) and vyavasayatmaka (definite).
23. Udayanacarya, TatparyaPariSuddhi, quotedin].N. Mohanty's Gangesa
Theory of Truth (Shantiniketan: Centre of Advanced Study in Philosophy, 1966),
p.54. I
Whether anuvyavasaya is intrinsically true is debatable. However, we
cannot deny that it does not err and, accordingly, is beyond any doubt: 'The
fact that one never introspects "I know a jar" when in fact one is knowing a
cloth is sufficient to show that here there is no reasonable probability of doubt.
Even if the primary knowledge were erroneous, its anuvyavasaya is not, for it
accurately describes its object, which is the primary knowledge. The knowledge
"this is silver" may be false, but that the knowledge has "silverness" for its qualifier
is true.' Ibid., p. 230.
64
Cit: Consciousness
24. For a detailed analysis of this concept, see this author's The Disinterested
Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedanta Phenomenology (Evanston, 11:
Northwestern University Press, 1998). '
25. The most detailed and systematic treatment of how the witness-
consciousness is apprehended is found in]iianaghanapada's TattvaSuddhi, eds
S.S. Suryanarayana Sastri and E.P. Radhakrishnan (Madras: University of Madras,
1941), p. 219.
26. 'As to ontology,' notes ]unjiro Takakusu, 'this school ... adheres neither
to the doctrine that all things exist, because it takes the view that nothing outside
the mind (mental activity) exists, nor to the doctrine that nothing exists, because
it asserts that ideations do exist.' The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy (Delhi: .
Motilal Banarsidass, 1978), p. 81.
27. Ramanuja is said to be the founder of the Vedanta school,
one rival of Advaita Vedanta. The Visil:itadvaita originated with the commentary
of Riimanuja on Brahmasutras, in which he joins issue with the Advaitins over
the question of the nature of consciousness and the viability of recognizing a
veil for consciousness. The label used to refer to this school means
'qualified (as theistic) nondualism.
28. 'vartamanadaSayam svasattaiva svasrayarrt prati prakasamanarrt. '
Ramanuja's commentary on Brahmasutras, 1.1.1.
29. 'Badha' etymologically means 'contradiction' or 'cancellation'. It is a
mental process in which one disvalues a content of consciousness, say, X, and
in the light of new information, replaces it by Y. It contains within its fold both
axiological and epistemic dimensions. The process of sublation involves three
steps: initially, a judgement about some object or content of consciousness; the
initial judgement is recognized as defective in the light of a new judgement that
is incompatible with the first judgement; and finally the new judgement is
accepted as true.
30. It is important to note here that the term 'level' in this context does not
have any spatial connotations. These levels differ because reason cannot establish
any causal relation among them. Eliot Deutsch brings out the ontological,
epistemological, and logical characteristics pertaining to a level of being: 'The
term "the level" seems to function in discourse primarily as a spatial metaphor:
in common language it connotes "aboves" and "belows"--one forms an image
of "levels" by thinking of one thing as being above or below another thing or of
one thing as being "deeper" then another thing, as in the eXpression "level of
meaning". The term "level", however, for purposes of ontology, can be given a
more precise conceptual meaning. Two orders of being can be said to be on
different levels: (1) when, epistemologically, because of differences in kind
between them (temporal, qualitative, and so on), relations cannot be established
rationally between them; (2) when, logically, assertions made about one of the
orders from the standpoint of the other may legitimately violate the formal
requirements that govern the thought of the one order when confmed to itself
(for example, assertions about the Godhead or Absolute in religious literature
made from the empirical standpoint may legitimately violate-and they
frequently do--the law of contradiction); and (3) when, axiologically, different
grades of value are ascribed to the orders.' Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A
Philosophical Reconstntction (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968), pp. 25-
6.
31. notes: 'Or else let the qualities, etc., depend on substance;
then it follows that, as they are present where substance is present, and absent
where it is absent, substance only exists, and, according to its various forms,
becomes the object of different forms and conceptions (such as quality, 'action,
etc.); just as Devadatta, for instance, according to the conditions in which he
finds himself, is the object of various conceptions and names.' The Vedanta-
Sutras ojBadarayar;,a with the Commentary by Sa1J1kara (trans.), George Thibaut
(New York: Dover Publications, 1970), part 1,2.1.17, p. 395.
32. See 'Introduction' to ].N. Mohanty's Gangesa Theory oj Truth, and
Appendix I of his Classical Indian Philosophy(Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield,
2000).
33. The commentator once again is refuting the Nyaya theory that a cognition
does not manifest either itself or the subject. The Advaitins affirm that the Nyaya
position that a cognition, while itself unperceived-like the eyes, etc.-
establishes its own objects-such as desire, etc.-leads to infinite regress. Such
a verdict goes against our experience, which functions temporally
Ofianaghanapada's Tattvasuddhi, p. 219).
4
The Subjectivist-Objectivist
Theory of Yogacara Buddhism
Buddhism, as we understand it today, is a generic term for various
religious, philosophical, epistemological, and ethical doctrines associated
with the teachings of the Buddha. It contains within its fold a variety of
schools, for example, Theravada, Sautrantika, Yogacara,
Madhyamika, along with several reformulations of these original Indian
doctrines in the Tibetan and the Chinese canons, and Zen Buddhism
with its original Chinese and Japanese versions.
The primary goal of this chapter is to unpack, develop, and evaluate
the Buddhist theory of consciousness. I am going to provide this account
from the Yogacara (fourth century CE) perspective. Given that the
Yogacara school takes consciousness to be the only reality and while
retaining the account of consciousness found in early Buddhism
(Sautrantikas and develops a detailed and sophisticated
theory of consciousness, it is natural to turn to this school for the Buddhist
account of consciousness.
Yogacara, an Indian Mahayana Buddhist school, is so named because
it accepts the 'practice of yoga' as the primary means of religious
attainment. Notwithstanding its name, the primary emphases of this
school are philosophical and psychological. The Buddhist tradition
venerates AsaIiga and Vasubandhu, the two brothers, as the co-founders,
of this school. The school not only draws from the writings of Asariga
(for example, Mahayanasarrzgraha and the Abhidharma-samuccaya)
and Vasubandhu (for example, VirrzSatika or the Twenty Verses and
TrirrzSika or the Thirty Verses), but also makes use of a number of
such Mahayana texts as the Sarrzdhinirmocana-Sutra, Lankavatara-
Sutra, Madhyanta-Vibhaga, and many other texts that emphasize the
doctrine of the phenomenal reality as a manifestation of consciousness.
In addition to their bas,ic doctrine of' consciousness only' (vijfiatimatra),
The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory ofYogikara Buddhism 67
-the school offers a new theory of eight consciousnesses, adding
manonama-vijiiana or 'consciousness called mind' and alaya-vijiicma
or 'warehouse consciousness' to the six traditional consciousnesses of
earlier Buddhism. Thus it is not surprising that at times the school is
referred to as Vijiianavada (the upholders of the doctrine of
consciousness). While affirming the traditional Mahayana notion of
emptiness (Sunyata) , it replaces the two-level theory of truth of
Madhyamika with three 'natures' or 'realms': (1) parikalpita, an imagined
or mentally constructed level which appears to be real; (2) paratantra,
a relative reality, the empirical realm or the realm of causality which
accounts for our mistaking impermanence for permanence; and
(3) parini$panna, the ultimate reality or the ultimate truth of all events,
the true nature of things (dharmata). In the Buddhist language, the last
'nature' or 'realm' is 'suchness' or 'thatness', i.e., a nature which cannot
be articulated conceptually and linguistically; it is not a universal shared
by many particulars; it is uniquely each event's own nature. It is nirvaI:ta.
Repeated meditative practices remove past residual impressions and
purify all defilements and conceptual constructions; one is enlightened.
This school also develops the notion of the' three bodies of the Buddha' .
In short, in developing all these notions, this school exerted a major
formative influence on a number of Chinese and Japanese Buddhist
schools.
This chapter will proceed in three parts: in the first, I provide a
discussion of the early Buddhist theory of consciousness; in the second,
I provide an account of the Yogacara conception of consciousness
focusing on Vasubandhu's Twenty Ver:s-eswhich contain his arguments
against the existence of external world independent of our perception
of it, as well as the Thirty Verses in which he develops his account of
consciousness in detail; and in the third and the final part, I shall analyse
the ramifications of the Yogacara conception of consciousness in
the context of the other schools of Indian philosophy. Wherever
necessary, I shall utilize other Yogacara texts to come to grips with the
basic issues that revolve around the Buddhist conception of
consciousness. It is my hope that the concluding section of this chapter
will not only help my readers correctly understand the basic issues
involved herein, but also set the stage for the discussion to follow in the
remaining chapters.
I
EARLY BUDDHIST ACCOUNT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness (vijiicma) appears in early Buddhism as the third link in
the process of dependent arising (prat'itya-samutapada). It is also listed
as one of the five skandbas (aggregates) that create the false notion of
'I' or an ego. Given that the doctrine of dependent arising is so central to
a clear understanding of the Buddhist thought, I shall begin my analysis
with it.
The Buddha uses the doctrine of dependent arising to explain the
nature of human existence and predicament. Essentially a doctrine of
causality, it encompasses within its fold a set of such interrelated notions
as moral responsibility, freedom, nature of psycho-physical personality,
sense experience, craving, rebirth, death, and so on. Etymologically,
samutapada means 'arising in combination', better yet 'co-arising'.
However, when compounded with the term 'prat'itya' meaning 'moving'
or 'leaning', the term implies 'dependence'. And so, the term 'prat'itya-
samutapada' has generally been translated as 'dependent arising'. In
the Buddhist texts, the formula of dependent arising has often been
expressed as follows: 'When this is, that comes to be; on the arising of
that, this arises. When this is not, that is not; on the cessation of that, this
ceases.'1 The Buddha explains the existence of human personality,
continuity of life, and its cessation in a formula of dependent arising
consisting of twelve factors.
The Buddha explains this doctrine in the Discourse to Katyayana in
the context of explaining the doctrine of the Middle Way in which he
advises Katyayana to avoid both extremes of existence and non-existence
and asks him to follow the Middle Way. In his words:
On ignorance depends karma;
On karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depend name and form;
On name and form depend the six organs of sense;
On the six organs of sense depends contact;
On contact depends sensation;
On sensation depends desire;
On desire depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief,
and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery arise.
The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory of Yoga car a Buddhism 69
But on the complete fading out and cessation of ignorance ceases
karma;
On the cessation of karma ceases consciousness ...
On the cessation of existence ceases birth;
On the cessation of birth cease old age and death, sorrow, lamenta-
tion, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of
misery cease.
2
The Buddha uses this doctrine of dependent arising to explain not
only the process of human bondage but also that of freedom. In the
twelve-factored causal law of dependent arising outlined above,
consciousness (vijiiana) is the third in the list; it is preceded by
'ignorance' or 'nescience' (avidya) and 'mental formations' or
dispositions (karma) and followed by name and form (nama-rnpa), the
fourth link. It is important to note here that consciousness provides the
link between the past and the present. The beginning statement 'on
ignorance depends karma' provides an explanation of human bondage.
The 'name and form' refers to psycho-physical personality, the human
person in bondage, whose nature is conditioned by his/her consciousness
(vijiiana), which, in tum, is conditioned by his/her ignorance or lack of
understanding. Conditioned by ignorance and dispositions, a person
experiences the empirical world surrounding him through the sense
organs, becomes attached to them, craves for them, thereby creating a
desire in him to be born again and again.
It is important to remember in this context that each of the twelve
factors is both conditioned and that which conditions. Thus the form of
one's consciousness is conditioned not only by what one experiences in
this world but also by the way in which one responds to these
experiences. If a person realizes that pleasurable experiences are
temporary thereby leading him to control his cravings, etc., he will have
a better understanding of his own personality and the world that
surrounds him. On the other hand, if his actions are dominated by cravings
and clinging to pleasurable experiences, they will create in him a desire
J
to be, in this as well as future lives, thereby giving rise to another
collection of name and form. Thus with the help of the formula of
dependent arising, the Buddha provides an explanation of the nature of
sa'f!ZSara, as well as of the consciousness of 'I' .
The 'I' or the human personality, argues the Buddha, consists of
five aggregates. These are the aggregates of matter, sensation, percep-
tion, mental formations, and consciousness. Consciousness, the Buddha
points out, is a response based on six faculties, namely, the eyes, ears,
70
Cit: Consciousness
nose, tongue, body, and the manas or the mind.
3
Each of the six
consciousnesses has a corresponding object structure (visible form,
sound, odour, taste, tangible things, and idea or thought). For example,
the basis of the visual consciousness is the eye and any visible form is its
object. The bases of sound consciousness are the ears and any audible
sound the object. So is the case with the remaining types of conscious-
ness. In the Buddha's words:
o priests, consciousness is named from that in dependence on which
it comes into being. The consciousness which comes into being in
respect of forms in dependence on the eye is called eye-consciousness.
The consciousness which comes into being in respect of sounds in
dependence on the ear is called ear-consciousness. The consciousness
which comes into being in respect of odours in dependence on the
nose is called nose-consciousness. The consciousness which comes
into being in respect of tastes in dependence on the tongue is called
tongue-consciousness. The consciousness which comes into being in
respect of things tangible in dependence on the body is called body-
consciousness. The consciousness which comes into being in respect
of ideas in dependence on the mind is called mind-consciousness.
4
Consciousness (vijnana), in this context, is simply an awareness of
the presence of an object.
5
For example, when the eye comes into contact
with the colour red, visual consciousness arises as a reaction, without
any attendant recognition of redness. In other words, this consciousness
is simply an awareness of the presence of a colour. 'Visual consciousness'
signifies 'seeing', not recognition. The job of recognition is performed
by the third skandha, namely, perception (sanna). Before proceeding
fUlther, it is important to underscore one important point: consciousness
for the Buddha is not spirit as opposed to matter; unlike Hinduism, it
does not denote a soul or substantial self that abides through series of
births. Consciousness, says the Buddha, arises depending on certain
conditions, and ceases when the conditions cease to be:
Just as, 0 priests, fire is named from that in dependence on which it
bums. The fire which bums in dependence on logs of wood is called
a log-fire. The fire which bums in dependence on chips is called a
chip-fire. The fire which bums in dependence on grass is called a
grass-fire. In exactly the same way, 0 priests, consciousness is named
from that in dependence on which it comes into being.
6
Thus, the Buddha repeatedly affirms that consciousness arises depending
on certain conditions, and that there is no arising of it in the absence of
those conditions. He declares in unequivocal terms that consciousness
depends on the four skandhas:
The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory ojYogacaraBuddhism 71
All sensation whatsoever, ... all perception whatsoever, ... all predis-
positions whatsoever, ... all consciousness whatsoever, past, future,
or present, be it subjective or existing outside, gross or subtle, mean
or exalted, far or near, which is coupled with depravity and attach-
ment, belongs to the consciousness-attachment group.7
The point that the Buddha is trying to make is as follows: consciousness
depends on the remaining four skandhas, namely, matter, sensation,
perception, and mental formations, and cannot exist independently of
them. Human personality is nothing but a name given to the collection
of these five ever-changing, physical and mental aggregates. Being
impermanent, these aggregates change from one moment to the next.
There is no identity, simply a continuity of becoming, and a flux of
momentary arising and ceasing to be. One must not lose sight of the fact
that consciousness does not owe its origin to an eternal being or soul,
but rather has its origin in experience that is characterized by cause and
effect.-
This early conception of consciousness is discussed by the Buddhist
schools of all colours and persuasions. Eventually, the five aggregates
(skandhas) came to be divided into numerous constituent elements called
dharmas
8
and the various kinds of conceptions (vijnapti) were taken to
be the constituent elements of the aggregates of consciousness. The
number of constituent elements assigned to the aggregate of
consciousness varied from school to school. However, they agreed that
a person is a cluster of these impermanent dharmas; they involve
grasping and attachment, the key causes of suffering. The most systematic,
detailed, and sophisticated analysis of dharmas is found in the
Abhidharmakosa ofVasubandhu.
II
Y OGAcAM CONCEPTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Vasubandhu,9 the younger brother of Asanga, was born in
(today known as Peshawar) in the state of Gandhara in north-western
India during the times when Gandhara was dominated by the
(also called Sarvastivada) school of Buddhism. Thus it is not surprising
that this school influenced Vasubandhu' s early writings. For a long time,
Vasubandhu supported himself by delivering public lectures on
Buddhism. He lectured during the day and condensed that day's lecture
in a verse in .the everling. In time, he composed over 600 verses. He
collected these verses under the title Abhidharmakosa, which became
one of the most important books of the Buddhist tradition. He also "'Tote
a commentary on this work. In this work, he describes the views of the
different schools of the eaiIy Buddhist philosophy along with his own
position. Vasubandhu arranges and systematizes all the dharmas
recognized in the early Buddhist philosophy and enumerates seventy-
five dharmas.
lO
Although Vasubandhu began as a Sarvastivadin, he converted to
Mahayana Buddhism under the influence of his brother AsaIiga.
Vasubandhu's two important works of this phase are VirrtSatika or the
Twenty Verses with his own commentary, and TrirrzSika or the Thirty
Verses. As a Yogacarin, Vasubandhu denied the existence of the external
world; in the Twenty Verses he defends Yogacara against the objections
by the realists who believe in the existence of an external world, and in
the Thirty Verses he develops his theses of the nature and transformations
of consciousness.
The goal of VirrtSatika is to repudiate the view that there is an external
world corresponding to the images of objects. It argues that a specific
change occurring in the stream of successive moments (sa1'!'ltatt) of
consciousness creates the image of an object. At the outset of this work,
Vasubandhu declares that consciousness alone is real and that the objectS
perceived in the alleged external world are non-existent. In the very
first verse, he writes: 'Everything is consciousness only, becaus'e there is
the appearance of the non-existent objects, just as a person with a cataract
sees hairs, moons, which do not really exist. '11 In the second verse he
anticipates the following objection on behalf of the opponent who argues
for the existence of the external world. The opponent argues: if we
assume for the sake of argument that external objects do not exist, how
would we account for their spatial and temporal determinations (desa
and kala niyamas), the indetermination of the various perceiving streams
of consciousness (sarrttanasyaniyaniyamaS) and the fruitful activity
which results from their knowledge (krtya-kriya)?12 The questions that
the opponent is trying to raise are as follows: if cognitions arise without
there being any external sense objects, how is it that an object is only
seen at a particular place and at a particular time? Why is it that all persons,
and not only one person, present at a particular place and time, perceive
a particular object? And how is it that fruitful activity is possible? If things
such as food, water, poison, etc., seen in a dream are mental constructions
devoid of activity, does it not imply that the real food and real water also
cannot satisfy hunger and thirst respectively? Since there is a
. correspondence between one's experience and the external objects,
argues the opponent, external objects must exist.
Cogriltions, argues Vasubandhu, arise without depending on the
putative object. In response to the objection that in the absence of external
objects we shall not be able to account for the spatioctemporal
determinations of cognitions, that is, if there are no real objects
corresponding to the ideas of objects, objects would arise anyWhere at
any time, like in a dream. Vasubandhu argues that external objects are
perceived in dreams and hallucinations, although none is actually present.
Even in dreams, one perceives such things as a city, a garden, a woman,
a man, etc. These things are seen in a particular place and at a particular
time, but not in all places and at all times. Thus, dreams are as determinate
as waking experiences. In short, the spatio-temporal determinations in
dreams and waking experiences are alike. The roaring of a tiger in a
dream may cause real fear to disturb one's sleep; similarly, an erotic
dream may result in a man's discharging his semen. Additionally, those
persons who because of their bad deeds go to hell, see the same river of
pus, etc. In short, in dreams and in hell, the four factors outlined by the
opponent obtain, though there are no external objects. Accordingly,
Vasubandhu points out that on the basis of certain experiences resulting
in certain experiences, one cannot conclude that objects corresponding
to those experiences in fact exist.
Conversely, he argues that perceptions do not justify the existence
of external objects. He defines perception as an awareness that arises
from the very object by which that awareness is specified. It is indeed
true that awareness of X, if veridical, is caused by X; but X, in this context,
is not a putative external object but rather the percept or object form
which.'floats' in that very awareness, which Vasubandhu calls the
alambana pratyaya. The mind fabricates its own objects. Residual
impressions generated by past experiences in turn generate ideas in the
mind and these ideas kre called 'objects'.
How we see is, to a large extent, determined by previous experience
and our experiences are intersubjective. To the qu('!stion how an inter-
subjective world is possible in the absence of external objects,
Vasubandhu refers to the illusory experience of hell shared by persons
with a common karmic heritage. When two individuals, say, A and B,
are looking at the same house from their living room window, their
experiences are very similar, if not same, because they both share the
'same' karma that has matured. In reality, there are two house-contents:
the house that A perceives and the house that B perceives; there is no
external house which exists independendy of its being perceived.
To sum up, the points that Vasubandhu is trying to make are as
follows: there is no one-to-one correspondence between images and
the external objects and given that no experience can occur without
consciousness, consciousness is the basic presupposition of any experi-
ence. Forms of subjectivity as well as objectivity are manifestations of
the same consciousness; neither is there any personal ego or any exter-
nal object.13
Other followers of Yogacara, for example, Dignaga, make use of
the doctrine of momentariness to argue against the independent existence
of objects apart from their being perceived. Dignaga argues that since
objects are momentary, that is, durationless instantaneous events, they
cannot be the cause of consciousness, because in order for them to
function as the cause of consciousness, there must be a time lapse
between the arising of an object and our consciousness of it. However,
such a time lapse IS not possible, because an object being durationless,
does not, cannot, be causally efficacious. Additionally, both the object
and the consciousness are experienced simultaneously; an object and
its consciousness are one and the same. Accordingly, Dignaga argues
that external objects cannot be taken to be the cause of consciousness;14
on the contrary, given the simultaneity of the two, the external object is
nothing but consciousness itself. Dignaga notes: 'The object of cognition
is the object internally cognized by introspection and appearing to us as
though it were external. The ultimate reality is thus the "idea"
[consciousness]. '15 He further adds: 'There is no difference between the
patch of blue and the sensation of blue. The same idea can be recognized
as a cognized object and a process of cognition. '16 So Dignaga concludes
that it is impossible to demonstrate the independent existence of objects
apart from our perceptions of them. No object is ever experienced apart
from the consciousness; consciousness and the object are identical.
The important features
17
of the Yogacara conception of the existence
of an external world may be formulated as follows:
1. No proof of the external world is possible.
2. The external world,even if it did exist, could not cause our
ideas; being momentary, the former would cease to be when
the latter arises.
3. The knowledge determines the form ot the object.
4. We are conscious of ideas and things together and never sepa-
rately. Thus, consciousness and content are simultaneous-
they are always experienced together (sahopalambha), that
is, orie is never experienced without the other.
5. When we are speaking of outer objects, we are only using
words.
6. The actual variety and order of ideas could be explained by
the saJrtskaras or residual impressions of past ideas; there is
no need to assume a plurality of objects.
7. The similarity between the consciousness in our waking life
and dream consciousness confirms that the external world is
not real. In dreams and mirages, external objects appear though
none is actually present. Similarly, our consciousnesses in
waking life are simply ideas and these ideas themselves appear
as external objects.
8. Our consciousness develops the entire world of experience
by its two functions: perception (khyati) and imagination or
conceptual construction (vikalpa).
Hence the conclusion: the external objects, which are generally taken
to possess objective reality, are nothing but states of consciousness. All
this amounts to arguing that the alleged external objects depend on
consciousness both epistemologically and onto logically; nothing is real
except consciousness; it is self-sufficient.
Consciousness, argues Vasubandhu, consists of a series of momentary_
events, giving rise to the awareness of various objects of the senses and
the mind. In the very first verse of his important work TrirtZsika,
Vasubandhu emphatically declares that all constituent elements and the
entity called self (atman) are transformations of consciousness.
Consciousness undergoes triple transformatio'ns. The usages of the
terms 'atman' and 'dharma' are manifold, but both terms just refer to
the transformations Of consciousness (vijiiana-pariYJama). This
transformation is threefold, namely, fruition, thinking, and representations
of objects.
ls
The first, which is also known as the warehouse-
consciousness (alaya-vijiiana), is the fruition (vipaka) of all seeds; the
essential nature of the second, the manonama-vi:jiiana, is to think; and
the third transformation represents the six sense-based consciousnesses
(pravrtii-vijiiana) .
The term 'alaya-vijiiana' etymologically means 'receptacle
consciousness'. The earliest use of this term is found in the
Sarrzdhininnocana-Sutra, a Yogacara work that pre-dates both Asailga
and Vasubandhu. The fifth chapter of this work elucidates alaya-vijnana
as the consciousness which possesses 'all the seeds' from which future
experiential forms grow. It is often compared to the ocean whose surface
water is disturbed by the winds, giving rise to constantly changing
waves.
19
Asailga regards alaya-vijnana as a dhatu,20 without any
beginnings, which functions as the common ground of all dharmas.
21
Vasubandhu holds that the alaya-vijnana is the repository of all
seeds. Seeds are potentialities, habitualities which are sedimented in the
life of an ego. When a person performs actions, vasanas(habitual residual
traces) of these actions are left in the form of seeds in the unconscious
and alaya-vijnana, a warehouse-consciousness, stores them. Thus, the
alaya-vijiiana is the realm of potentiality; it is the root consciousness.
The accumulated karmic traces lie dormant in the alaya-vijnana.
In itself, the alaya-vijnana is not a static entity; it changes instanta-
neously. The Lankavatara-Sutra, for example, notes:
As the waves are stirred by the ocean, as images are seen in a mirror,
in a dream, simultaneously, so is the mind its own field. 22
Like the waves which rise on the ocean stirred by the wind, dancing
and without interruption, the alaya-ocean is, in a similar manner,
constantly stirred by the winds of objectivity, and so is seen dancing
about with the various vijiiana waves .... As the waves in their variety
are constantly stirred in the ocean, so in the alaya is produced the
variety of what is known as the vijiianas.
23
Vasubandhu explains the concept further:
The store consciousness is the perception, abiding in, and grasping of
what is unperceived (asarrtviditaka). It is always associated with touch,
attentiveness, knowledge, conception and willing.
24
The feeling that pertains to it is that of indifference. The store
consciousness is undefiled and undefined. Touch, etc., are also
indifferent in feeling. The store consciousness is constantly evolVing
like a torrent of water. 25
It is important to note that the wind of activity, with which the alaya-
vijnana is often compared, is not something external to it. The
warehouse-consciousness carries within it the traces of all past
experiences: of clinging and grasping of what is unperceived, and it is
also associated with such experiential phenomena as conception, touch,
knowledge, volition, and feeling. These experiences are neither pleasant
The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory ofYogacara Buddhism 77
nor unpleasant; they are indifferent. It is not observed by anybody and
given that it can be defined as neither good nor bad, the best way to
. describe it is by saying that it is undefined, possibly inexpressible. In it
the seeds of vasanas that have attained maturity germinate. It is the
ground of experience out of which the individual consciousness grows.
These seeds, however, continue to create agitation within the alayaand
manifest under suitable conditions. Accordingly, the alaya-vijncma is
both the' hetu-parinama-vijnana' and the 'phala-parinama-vijnana',
that is, the causally transformed consciousness and the effect of such
transformed consciousness.
Due to the habit-energy (vasanas) of actions and the twofold grasping
as soon as the previous maturation has been exhausted another
maturation arises.
26
The alaya-vijnana, the individual unconscious, continues from birth to
birth. It serves as the basis of both, unconscious
27
and conscious. When
once the past seeds stored in it manifest themselves, no alaya-vijnana
remains. Ending of an individual alaya-vijnana may either mean the
end of one's present life Gr the attainment of enlightenment contingent
upon how the individual alaya-vijnana has been exhausted. If, however,
an individual does not attain nirva:Q.a, the traces of the deeds will create
a new alaya-vijnana, and keep one involved in phenomenal existence
(saf(lsara).
Thus, the alaya-vijnana is a sort of a warehouse for traces of past
experiences, capable of being awakened or activated under suitable
conditions, and determining the cause and nature of one's experience.
The Yogacara account, however, does not provide a clear explanation
of what those suitable or appropriate conditions might be under which
these traces become manifest. It simply says that the alaya-vijnana stores
these seeds until they ripen and manifest themselves in a process referred
to as 'perfuming' (vasana). One's actions, experiences, behaviour, etc.,
are conditioned by these seeds and traces-the past history-which
constitute the individuality, the feeling of me, mine, and my cognitive
states. It seems that these seeds or the traces of past experiences, are
perfumed by each perishing cognition of the flux of consciousness, as
well as produce a cognition in the future (while each such cognition
also perfumes the seed). Thus, the alaya-vijfiana, as the root
consciousness, is the basis of the remaining seven types of consciousness.
The second transformation of consciousness is mano-vijnana, the
'consciousness called mind'.
'The second transformation of consciousness, ca'lled the mano-vijiicma,
evolves when it takes the store consciousness as an object and
support. The essential nature of the mano-vijiianais to think.
28
Vasubandhu construeS it as a 'thinking consciousness'. Sthiramati,
in his commentary on this verse, refers to it as the 'defiled consciousness'.
It depends on the aZaya-vijficma for its origin and operation. AZaya-
vijfiana also serves as its object, because as a thinking consciousness, it
mistakes the aZaya-vijfiana to be the self,29 thereby creating the false
notion of an ego. It is the I-consciousness or the consciousness of an.
ego. It is taken to be associated with four types of defilements: perception
of self confusion about the self (atma-moha), self-pride
(atma-mana), and self-love (atma-sneha).30 It does not exist in an arhat
nor functions m the state of cessation nor on the supermundane pathy
Thus, whereas aZaya-vijfiana is latent, the thinking consciousness is a
manifest consciousness and is responsible for making discriminations
and value judgements because of its misperception of the aZaya-vijfiana.
The third transformation of consciousness is called pravrtti-
vijfiiina or the active consciousness. It consists of six sense-based
consciousnesses. They are produced through the visual, auditory,
olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and the mind senses:
The five sense consciousnesses arise in the store consciousness ...
depending on causes and conditions, just as waves originate on
water.
The mano-vijiiana arises at all times, except in the case of those who
are born in the realm of beings without thought (asa'f!1-jiiika), those
who are in the two mindless trances (samapattt), or those who are in
states of stupor or unconsciousness (acittaka).32
Thus, whereas the five sense-based conseiousnesses arise depending
on causes and conditions either individually or collectively, just as waves
originate on water from the aZaya-vijfiana, mano-vijfiana, on the other
hand, functions at all times except in those who are asa1'(ljfiika, those
who are in the two mindless trances, or those who are in states of
unconsciousness.
We have already seen that in early Buddhism the aggregate of
consciousness was taken to be of six kinds. Each type of consciousness
has a specific sense organ attached to it. Early Buddhists take mind
(manas) to be a faculty like any other sense organ, say, the eyes or the
ears, which can be restrained and developed like any other faculty. The
17Je Subjectivist-Objectivist Tbeory of Yoga car a Buddhism 79
sensory forms, sounds, odours and tastes, and tangible objects that we
experience in the world generate ideas and thoughts which are conceived
by the manas-consciousness. Given that the manas-consciousness arises
as a result of the ideas and thoughts produced and conditioned by our
experiences, it has thoughts or ideas as its object. It is important to note
in this context that the manas-consciousness, one of the six kinds of
sense consciousnesses accepted by early Buddhism, is different from
the mano-vijiiana, that is, thinking consciousness ofVasubandhu. The
mano-vijiiana owes its origin to the warehouse-consciousness, which
not only constitutes the object of mano-vijiiana, but also the basis of its
operation and function. Manas, a subtle mental element, functions by
receiving and disposing the data received from the other consciousnesses.
The mano-vijiiana performs the function of organizing the data presented
to it by the six sorts of sense consciousness; it also mistakenly takes the
warehouse-consciousness to be an object, and misconstrues it as an
independent S<1lf. Tl:;i.us, 'whereas mano-vijiiana divides the world into
a web of objects, manaspolarizes this world around a false-discriminated
ego or self. Manas develops attachments and aversions to the "things"
which the mano-vijiiana isolates. '33
While the alaya-vijiiana is latent, the thinking consciousness and
the six sense-based consciousnesses are manifest. There exists a
reciprocal dependence between the alaya-vijiiana and the seven
manifest conscious-nesses. The latter is produced from the seeds stored
in the former, and, in turn, leaves its impressions on the former. The
process of evolution takes place as follows: seeds ripen in the warehouse-
consciousness resulting in the evolution first of the thinking consciousness
and then the sixfold consciousnesses, thereby leading to good, bad, or
indifferent behaviour. As a result the vasanasare accumulated and stored
in the warehouse-consciousness and serve as the basis for continuous
or cyclic evolution of the thinking consciousness and the sixfold sense-
based consciousness.
34
I
The alaya-vijiiana changes from moment to moment; vijiiana of
one moment is replaced by the vijiiana of the next moment. As a result,
there is a stream of successive moments of consciousness resulting in
the formation of a consciousness complex. Self is nothing but a complex
of this stream of consciousness, and the objects that are taken to exist in
the external world are sWply the images that appear in the stream of
consciousness. The evolution or transformation of consciousness is
without any beginning. It continues to flow until the stored seeds are
rooted out and one attains enlightenment.

By making alaya-vijficma the receptacle of all seven types of
consciousnesses, Yogadira is able to account for such mental activities
as memory. Though the majority of seeds that ripen and manifest
themselves are 'tainted' (asrava-bija) , giving rise to all sorts of wrong
perceptions, the alaya-vijfiana also contains a number of pure seeds
(anasrava-bija) that lie in the deepest layer of the alaya (paramalaya).
It is the maturing of these pure seeds that is responsible for a complete
restructuring of experience, known as 'a turning over of one's basis'
(asraya-prav'(tti) through meditation. This explains not only how the .
alaya-vijfiana functions, but also why it is sometimes referred to as the
Tathagata-garbha or the 'womb of the Tathagata'.
Of these eight kinds of consciousness, the last seven are oriented
towards the object. They create the mistaken belief that there are such
objects, as trees, tables, chairs, etc., and these objects exist independently
of consciousness. They are intentional. The first, the alaya-vijfiana, on
the other hand, is non-intentional. It is the unconscious foundation of all
intentional cognitions; it is also the streaming flux of consciousness,
without any reflections and conceptualizations, though unified by past
habitualities and their traces by a sort of 'passive synthesis'. So for
Yogacara, the seven intentional cognitions are founded upon a non-
intentional flux of consciousness. Consciousness in contemporary
phenomenology--even when it is intentional-is founded upon a hyletic,
sensuous consciousness. It is always concrete; it is neither the purely
formal thought of Kant nor the pure, intellectual thinking act of Hegel.
So far Yogacara comes close to phenomenology, excepting its thesis of
non-intentional alaya as the foundation of intentional co:nsciousness.
III
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
On the basis of the analysis given above, the main features of the Yogacara
theory of consciousness may be formulated as follows:
1. A vijfiana (consciousness) is an event that arises and perishes.
2. It arises on the basis of four causal conditions (pratyaya).
3. Each vijfiana has an intentional structure internal to it.
4. It is also aware of itself (svasarp,vedana).
5. Each vijiiana as it perishes leaves its traces, which are
preserved in another vijiiana known as the alaya-vijiiana.
6. All types of consciousness have a hyletic or sensuous aspect;
the only exceptions in this regard are the manonama-vijiiana
and alaya-vijiiana, the two new modes of consciousness
which Yogacara added to the already available list of six.
A quick review of the features outlined above reveals that the entire
theory of Yogacara has features which are naturalistic, intentionalistic
and spiritualistic. The naturalistic elements are an emphasis on causality;
they talk of the arising and perishing of every vijiiapti, and the sensuous
or hyletic nature of every consciousness excepting the thinking
consciousness and the alaya-vijiiana. The intentionalistic element is
preserved in the thesis that every vijiiapti, excepting alaya, has in its
terminology the structure of 'citta' and 'caitta'35-act and content. It
may be noted at this point that the Yogacara needs such an intentional
structure within each vijiiana in order to be able to do away with the
alleged external things. The spiritual element is preserved in the thesis
of svasa'Y!lvedana, which states that every consciousness is self-
manifesting. I shall next elaborate. on these points. To do so, I shall begin
with an analysis of the four causal conditions that bring about
consciousness.
The technical Buddhist word for a cause is 'pratyaya'. A vijiiana
arises depending on four causal conditions (pratyayas). The
Abhidharmakosa lists them as four: ' ... There are four conditions
(pratyayas), namely, cause as a condition (hetupratyaya), an equal and
immediately antecedent condition (samanantarpatyaya), an object as
condition (alambanapatyaya), and a predominating influence as
condition (adhipatipatyayat). '36
Hetu pratyaya: Hetu pratyaya or the primary causal condition has been
defined as that by means of which an effect comes into existence. In
other words, it is the C3fllse in the ordinary sense of a 'cause'. It is also
explained as a supportive factor (upakarako dhammo); it is that by which
an effect is established. It is used in the sense of root. The roots of a tree
are the hetu; the water and the sun that help its growth are the conditions.
In the Abhidharma, these two terms are used in different senses.
However, in the Sutras, they have been used interchangeably in the
sense of 'the causal relation by way of root'.37 The motives of actions,
for example, hatred, desire, confusion, may be taken to be the root
condition of human suffering.
Alambana pratyaya:The term' alambana' is derived from a + ..J lamb,
meaning to hang upon. It implies things which the subject hangs upon,
that is, the 'objects'. In other words, it is the objective condition which
signifies the objective support for the manifestation of consciousness or
mental phenomena. A visual form, for instance, serves as a causal relation
to visual consciousness, by way of an 'object'.
Adhipati pratyaya: Literally, it stands for mastery or lordship over one's
own. It is the dominant condition. One of the four dominant factors,
namely, wish, thought, effort, and reasoning at any given time may
causally relate itself to such phenomena as consciousness and mental
states by way of predominance. 'Whenever such phenomena as
consciousness and mental states arise by giving predominance to one of
these four factors, then this phenomenon is to the other phenomenon a
condition by way. of predominance. '38
Samanantara pratyaya: The Buddhists argue that one thought-moment
perishes immediately after giving birth to another. All the potentialities
of the preceding state are transferred to the succeeding state. Thus the
perishing preceding state causally relates itself to the succeeding state.
In other words, this condition refers to the proximate or immediately
contiguous cause. This causal condition came in handy for the Buddhist
theory of momentary existence. Given that a momentary existence was
defined as having no duration, it did not allow for the preceding event
to exert any influence on the succeeding event.
Thus, when a consciousness arises, say, a visual consciousness, it
arises depending upon the above four causal conditions. For example,
when the eye comes into contact with the colour red, an object
(alambana) , for example, the colour red, is presented in it; the sense
organ, for example, the eyes, the light, and the sun will be the hetu; the
immediately preceding cognition will be samanantara; and the
thought-effort and reasoning involved-will be the dominant factor
adhibati.
Note that all these causal conditions, the object of consciousness,
the sense organs, and all the rest-particularly the alamban'a and the
adhipati which in a naturalistic account would be external
to conscious-ness belonging to the external world-are, for the Buddhists,
also elements of consciousness. In other words, the causes are internal
to the structure of vijiiapti. This amounts to arguing as follows: each
vijiiapti arises by itself and perishes by itself, bec:luse the causal elements
themselves on which vijiiapti depends, in order to arise, belong either
The Subjectivist-Objectivist Theory of Yogacara Buddhism 83
to its structure or to the series. Nothing outside of consciousness causes
consciousness.
This account is difficult to describe accurately in view of the natural
tendency to separate consciousness from things in the external world,
especially from the body. Perhaps, comparing the Buddhist account with
other Indian theories might proVide some insights, and help the reader
understand the Buddhist account better.
The Buddhists alone in the Indian tradition divided the various types
of consciousness according to the nature of sensuous and bodily elements,
which internally characterize it. No other school of thought in the Indian
tradition spoke of the visual consciousness, auditory consciousness,
tactual consciousness, olfactory consciousness, and gustatory
consciousness. The Vaise!?ika did recognize that a cognition is caused
by the contact of a visual sense organ with its object. The resulting
cognition may be called visual perception. On the Vaise!?ika view
cognition is a consciousness or the knowledge of the appropriate object;
it is visual in the sense that it is caused by the visual sense organ; its
object is rnpa or colour. So much also goes into the Buddhist account.
However, on the Buddhist account, something more is intended, namely,
that the resulting consciousness itself is visual; not merely that its object
is rnpa or colour.
It is important to emphasize how radically different the Buddhist
school is from all other Hindu schools of philosophy. In all the Hindu
schools of philosophy, including Nyaya-Vaise!?ika and Sarilkhya,
consciousness is nirakaraor formless as explained earlier, however for
the Buddhists, consciousness is sakara. The sensuous object, the colour,
for example, that I see in front of me, in itself is a structural component
of the totality of my consciousness of that moment. That is what is meant
by saying that every consciousness on the Buddhist theory excepting
thinking consciousness and alaya-vijnana have hyletic components.
They are not what is in the Vedantic discourse called sudhacaitanya
(pure consciousness), which is merely a principle of manifestation
without any content to it. The Buddhist consciousness, on the other hand,
is completely concretized with all its sensuous content as though built
into it, but with its own arising and perishing. In doing all this in a
remarkable way, naturalism and empiricism are fused with the resulting
theory of consciousness. In many respects the Yogacara Buddhist theory
of consciousness comes close to the Husserlian phenomenological theory
according to which even consciousness which has been purified through
epoche or bracketing still has all its concrete richness of content, it is
only freed from all metaphysical interpretations.
In order to understand the Buddhist theory still better, let me contrast
it with other Indian theories from another perspective, namely, to what
extent identity and difference hold good of consciousness. All schools
of Indian philosophy, with the exception of Advaita Vedanta, admit in
different measures both identity and difference into consciousness. The
Buddhist in this regard stands at the other end from Advaita Vedanta by
admitting only differences into the structure of consciousness. Differences
are either internal or external; external differences are either sajafiya or
vijatiya, that is, homogeneous or heterogeneous. Admitting a real' other'
to consciousness would be admitting heterogeneous difference. This is
the case with Sarpkhya which admits the difference between
and prakrti; prak.rti is a real other to consciousness. The same would be
the case with realist philosophies like and Mimarpsa.
The world for these schools of philosophers is outside of consciousness;
it is other than the consciousness. To admit many instances of
consciousness such as many in Sarpkhya is to admit
homogeneous differences. These are all consciousness in the
same way as particular horses are instances of horseness. The Advaita
Vedanta, on the other hand, excludes all differences from the being and
the nature of consciousness. I shall discuss this position later in this book.
For my immediate purpose, it is sufficient to note that for Advaita Vedanta,
for whom consciousness alone is real, there is neither external nor internal
difference within it; it is not only one but also undifferentiated. It is pure
identity. For the early Buddhists Csvasarrzvedanavadins, i.e., the
Sautrantikas and the conscious-ness admits of all kinds of
difference. It is different from matter, which they admit to be real; there
are many streams of consciousness, each different from the other and
each stream having internal differences between the events which
constitute it. The Yogacara taking vijiiana alone to be real gets rid of
external heterogeneous difference, there being nothing other than
vijiiana. But there are still many series or streams and each one contains
its internal constituents or members. The Buddhists carry this picture to
its logical consequence; each event of consciousness has two phases,
namely, its arising and its perishing and each of these two again has its
own arising and perishing, namely, arising of arising, perishing of arising,
arising of perishing, and perishing of perishing. Whether in each case,
one wishes to have a third event or phase called being between the two
is left undecided. Putting such a being between arising and perishing in
each case would bring the Buddhist position closer to the Nyaya-VaiSel?ika
position with regard to the inner qualities or gU1Jas of the self. Such a
picture of the life of consciousness makes it really a flux with nothing
abiding, no identity, but permeated only with differences. There would
be no internal perception of these events, for an event would be no
more by the time it is internally cognized. What we would be perceiving
in that case would be really a trace and not the original event. Hence the
importance of the idea of 'trace' in the Buddhist account. The Buddhists
avoid explicitly drawing these consequences by insisting on the self-
shining character of each event of consciousness. Consciousness, even
in its minutest element, is svasarrtvedana; it manifests itself without
waiting for an inner perception of it. We then have something other
than endlessly running after traces.
Consciousness then in the Buddhist account is a stream of events
each one of which is svasarrtvedana and each leaving traces and those
traces again their traces and so on ad infinitum. The thesis of the concept
of alaya-vijiiana or warehouse-consciousness was introduced to make
it possible that the traces are not being ceaselessly diSSipated, allowing
no repetition and recollection. The alaya-vijiiana is a warehouse for
traces of past experiences capable of being awakened or activated and
determining the cause and nature of one's experiences. The two theses
that (1) each vijiiana is momentary, and that (2) there is no external
world made it imperative that the Yogacaras postulate something like
alaya to explain continuity. The alaya may indeed be the earliest
hypotheSiS of an unconscious capable of influencing the direction of a
conscious life. But it needs to be made coherent with the rest of the
theory and practically it needs to be formulated in such a manner as
allows the unconscious life to be either activated or neutralized.
Sazpkara in his commentary on the Brahmasutra discusses some of
the difficulties with the Yogacara's position and draws the attention of
his readers to the question of coherence. Sazpkara argues that, for the
Vijiianavadin the form of any object can be explained solely
on the basis of consciousness, because these forms are contained within
consciousness, :md so the Buddhists conclude that the hypothesis of
externally existing object is superfluous.
39
Sazpkara points out that the
external world exists; perception testifies to its existence. When we
perceive, we perceive external objects like a post, a wall, etc. In response
to the Buddhists' argument that consciousness itself appears as external,
Sazpkara says that if there is no external world, how can Buddhists claim
that the content of consciousness appears 'as if' external? When I perceive
,
an object X, my perception takes the form 'this is X' and not 'this is like
X'. Unless there are real snakes, a rope cannot appear as a snake. Sarpkara
further argues that the simultaneity between external objects and ideas
does not prove their identity. In our knowledge, say, of the 'knowledge
of a jar', or the 'knowledge of a cloth', the difference resides in the
qualifying parts, for example, the jar and the cloth, and not in
the consciousness of these objects themselves. This proves that the
consciousnesses and the objects are distinct; differences in external
objects account for the differences in cognition, just as when we perceive
a black cow and a white cow, the attributes blackness and whiteness
differ but cowness remains constant. Thus, there is a difference between
external object and our consciousness of it.
For Saf!lkara, perception provides a testimony to the existence of
external objects. Against the Yogacara view of the external objects,
Sarpkara points out:
One who admits only cognition (vijiiana) has to explain why it is that
he does not admit external objects such as pillar and wall. To say that
only a cognition is experienced will not do, for it is reasonable to say
that external objects also are experienced. It may be objected that a
cognition, being like [a] lamp, of the nature of manifestation,
experiences itself (or, is itself experienced) while external objects are
not like that. To this, one could reply that it would amount to self
contradictory admission that it acts upon itself, like fire burning itself
.... It cannot be the case that cognition, even if different from objects,
experiences itself, for the idea of acting upon itself is contradictory.40
Sarpkara points out that the Buddhist thesis that a vijiiiina, like a lamp,
manifests itself and does not require another vijiiiina to manifest it,
amounts to saying that knowledge does not require a subject, which is
absurd; it is like arguing that a thousand lamps manifest themselves inside
an impenetrable rock. Finally, Sarpkara points out that even if we assume
for the sake of argument that there are no external objects, Buddhists
must explain how a cognition arises, in the absence of external objects.4I
What is the substratum of these cognitions? The Buddhists attempt to
account for these cognitions by arguing that present cognitions can be
explained by the earlier cognitions, which in tum can be accounted for
on the basis ofthe residual traces stored in the iilaya. If this is so, argues
Saf!lkara, how do these residual traces arise given that there are no
external objects? To say that there is a beginniugless series of the residual
traces is absurd. There must be some substratum in which these residual
traces reside. It could be argued that the iiZaya itself is the substratum of
the residual traces. But since the alaya is momentary like any other
consciousness, it would be no more capable of doing what the original
experiences could not. If on the other hand the aZaya is granted a certain
permanence to be able to do its job, there would be inconsistency
between the thesis of the permanence of alaya and the thesis of
momentariness.
42
In short, given that the mental cognitions are inert, they cannot reveal
themselves. A cognition points to something beyond it, to a cognizer.
Some sort of abiding, permanent, connecting principle is needed to
explain memory, recognition, and so on. In the absence of such a
principle, our everyday normal activities cannot be accounted for. All
cognitions need a basis, and that basis is the unchanging seer. Hence,
the need for the self-luminous witness-consciousness to reveal mental
cognitions. This witness is an eternal seer whose sight is never destroyed.
I shall return to this concept in the next chapter on Advaita.
It seems to me that the Buddhists have two alternatives open to
them. I think one alternative for the Yogacara is to refuse to ascribe
permanence, however limited, to the alaya, and to make it into a series
of traces, traces of traces, and so on ad infinitum, thereby making it
almost literally the equivalent of what Derrida calls 'difJeranz whose
explanatory value cannot be measured simply by asking how it makes
memory and recognition possible, because our ordinary concepts of
memory and recognition are geared towards a metaphysics of abiding
entities. In that case, the Buddhist vision of wisdom and nirvaI).a would
require a complete deconstruction of the notion of presence (that
something is and that something is being perceived) and replace it by
the notion of absence or trace which is all that we ever reach. The other
alternative is to elevate the alayato the status ofthe eternal, unchanging
self and abandon the original concept of ever-changing consciousness,
which will take Yogacara to the vicinity of Advaita Vedanta. I think the
more interesting possibility for the Y ogacara is the former and not the
latter. As suggested by me earlier, it requires a developed theory of time-
consciousness, which the Yogacara did not explicitly thematize though
all the ingredients for doing so were available at their disposal.
I have referred earlier to what I call the naturalistic elements in the
Buddhist theory. One aspect of it was the hyletic nature of consciousness
to which I have already drawn attention. The other aspect is indicated in
the way the discourse on consciousness appears within the twelve-
membered series of dependent origination. Of these twelve factors, the
third member (the initial consciousness of the embryo) of the doctrine
of dependent arising is the Yogaclra's alaya-vijiicma. The first two
(ignorance and karmas) refer to the past life and the last two pertain to
the future (birth and death). Given the Buddhist account of causality,
the fist two members must in some way causally determine the present
series with which a new life begins. In what way or by what mechanism
do the past karmas influence the consciousness of the embryo within
the womb? F or the Buddhist there is an embryonic consciousness which
must itself be a stream and which matures into an adult consciousness.
The point that needs to be emphasized is that the birth of a conscious
life is not an entirely new beginning but a continuation of the conscious
series which has been transmitted from the past through the mother's
womb. How does the transmission take place? Is it the case that in some
manner we do not further understand how consciousness is transmitted
or the series continues through the egg and the sperm of the parents,
and so does the alaya of the past life remain continuous with the alaya
of the present? How should one construe the meanings of past and present
in this context? How do past experiences influence the present? Each
vifiiana is destroyed in an instant. How does it influence the future?
What initially seemed like a purely phenomenalized account of
consciousness, namely, consciousness as experienced in its concreteness
is now being integrated into a naturalistic account of how conception
begins and the embryonic consciousness picks up where death had
seemingly interrupted the stream. Husserl had in his old age tried to
make sense of the phenomena of birth and death and the closest he
could come to making sense of them was by understanding death as
falling into a long sleep and birth as an awakening. With their
phenomenological bias, the Buddhists also must have tried to make sense
of consciousness, intrinSically self-shining, as dying, falling into a static
dormancy as in an embryo, and then emerging again into the full light of
waking consciousness. How did they make sense of it all? The Vedanta
and the Sarpkhya schools did not encounter this problem, they completely
separated consciousness from nature. The Buddhists by fusing the natural
with the spiritual not only naturalized consciousness in the manner
described above but also must have spiritualized the natural in a manner
that we do not quite comprehend. Believing as they did, like other
participants in the Indian philosophic discourse in karma and rebirth,
they had to give an account of karma and rebirth that is not to be a mere
appearance owing to avidya of the unchanging atrnan, but that is to be a
part of the real natural process of birth and e ~ and reincarnation. Thus,
the Yogacara philosophers in their theory of consciousness assimilate
the spiritual and naturalist aspects together retaining both the intentional
Tbe Subjectivist-Objectivist Tbeory of Yogacara Buddhism 89
and the causal accounts, the hyletic and the svasarrz.vedana aspects of
consciousness.
Before concluding this chapter, I shall bring one final point to the
attention of my readers. If the account of the Yogacara Buddhist theory
of consciousness given in the preceding pages is accurate, it cannot be
taken to be an entirely subjectivist theory; rather it is subjectivist-
objectivist. On the Yogacara theory, consciousness is not an eternal
principle; it is a series of instantaneous events, brought about by causal
conditions which, to be sure, are material, thereby leading one to believe
that the Yogacara account of consciousness is empirical. However,. when
we proceed further, we realize that there are other components of this
theory, which belie its characterization as empirical. For example,
consciousness on this view does not belong to an empirical self, although
the empirical self is constituted by a stream of consciousness. Its objects
are not the empirical objects, but rather trans-empirical. On the Yogacara
Buddhist theory of consciousness, it is still self-shining Csvasarrz.vedana)
.and not dependent upon anything else to manifest it. So we can say that
the Yogacara account is in one sense empirical, and in another sense it
is not. It is not transcendental, because it takes consciousness to be caused.
Insofar as the Yogacarin takes consciousness to be svayarrz.prakasa, that
is, self-manifesting, it is subjective. However, since they regard
consciousness as caused by objective conditions, it is also objective.
Elements of the naturalism that influenced the origin of Buddhism survive
in their account. Thus, it seems appropriate to classify the Yogacara
account of consciousness as partly objectivist and partly subjectivist, given
that it encompasses within its fold a combination of the spiritual and the
naturalist aspects, while retaining both the intentional and the causal
accounts-the hyletic and the svasa:rrz.vedana aspects of consciousness.
Yogacara shares with Vedanta this thesis that consciousness is
svasarrz.vedana, in spite of the differences in their understanding of it.
Notes
1. Majjhima Nikaya, I. 262--4.
2. Sa1Tlyutta-Nikaya, xxii, 90. Henry Clark Warren, Buddhism in
Translations (New York: Atheneum, 1963), p. 166. Henceforth this book will
be cited as Warren.
3. Manas is generally translated as 'mind'. In the early Buddhist tradition,
manaswas taken to be one of the twelve sense-fields (ayatanas) which included
six pairs of base and object. According to this account, manas, the mind-organ,
90
Cit: Consciousness
is one of the six bases and thoughts would be its objects. Like any other sense
organ, mind can be restrained, developed, and trained. Buddha often talks with
his disciples aboutthe value of controlling the six faculties. It played an important
role in the Abhidharma analysis of the early Buddhist psychologists and
philosophers. In Mahayana, and especially in the Yogacara school, manaswore
an additional hat as one of the eight consciousnesses that received and disposed
of data from the prior six consciousnesses. It became the pivot around which
their conception of the ego, the I-consciousness, revolved. It was taken to be
an evolute of the eighth consciousness, known as the 'warehouse-consciousness'
(alaya-vijiiana). In this account, the seventh consciousness represents the
surface of the mind, and the warehouse-consciousness serves as the basis of all
other mind activity.
4. Majjhima Nikaya, 38; Warren, p, 183.
5. In Vasubandhu's words, Vijiiana is the 'raw grasping' of an object. See
ed. Louis de La Vallee Poussin, English translation
by Leo M. Pruden (Berkeley, California: Asia Humanities Press, 1991), vol. I,
p. 74. Henceforth this work will be cited as Poussin. It is not possible to
experience consciousness directly. As a blade cannot cut itself, Similarly one
cannot experience consciousness directly as an object. For as soon as one focuses
on the consciousness, it ceases to be the subject; it becomes an object.
6. Majjhima Nikaya, 38; Warren, p. 183.
7. Visuddhi-Magga, Chapter XIV; Warren, p. 156.
8. Dharrnas are the elements (compounded and non-compounded) such
as mind, matter, reality, ideas-in general the basic factors or elements of
experience.
9. Takasuku places Vasubandhu between 420 and 500 CEo Paramartha wrote
his biography sometime between 468 and 568 CEo
10. He divides dharmas into satrZskrta (conditioned) and asatrZskrta
(unconditioned) dharmas. There are seventy-two conditioned and three
unconditioned dharrnas. Whereas the conditioned dharmas arise and perish,
the unconditioned ones are eternal. The three unconditioned ones are: nirvat:ta,
empty space, and, curiously enough, meditative emptiness of consciousness.
The dharmas include within their fold a comprehensive description of Buddhist
doctrines, ranging from cosmology and theories of perception to issues
surrounding moral problems, yogic practices, and the meaning and significance
of rebirth, as well as the virtues that one has to cultivate on the path to nirvat:ta,
which itself is listed as one of the three unconditioned dharrnas.
11. vijiiaptimatram evitad asad arthavabhasanat
yatha taimirikasyasat kesa candiidi daranatrZ
VitrZatika, Verse 1. Henceforth this work will be cited as VV.
12. Ibid., Verse 2.
13. Ibid., Verses 3-7.
14. 'Indeed it is not the eyeball that represents the organ, but a respective
sensuous faculty. In assuming a subconscious store of consciousness instead of
an eJl.1:emal world and a Biotic Force instead of the physical sense-organs, we
will be able .to account for the process of cognition. There will be no
contradiction.' From Dignaga's taken from Th.
Stcherbatsky's, Buddhist Logic, Vol. I (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993),
pp.520-1. .
15. Ibid., pp. 519-20.
16. Ibid., p. 520.
17. Sarpkara in his BSBh 11.2.28 makes some of the same points.
18. atma-dharmopacaro hi vividho yaq pravartate
vijiiana-parir;ame 'sau parir;amaq sa ca tridhda
vipako mananakhYaS-ca ca
tatralayakhyrrx vijiianarrx v"ipakaq sarva bijakarrx.
TrirrzSika, Verses 1-2, p. 49. Henceforth this work will be cited as TS.
19. D. T. Suzuki (tr.), The Lar;kavatara Sutra (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1966), pp. 2, 127.
20. The term 'dhatu' is derived from the ..J dhar meaning, 'to hold'. 'That
which carries its own characteristic mark is 'dhatu'. They are so called since
they are devoid of being or life (nisatta niftva).' See Narada Mahathera, A
Manual of Abhidhamma (Kuala Lumpur: Buddhist Missionary Society, 1987),
p.200.
21. AsmigaMahayana Sarrxgraha, Chapter 2.
22. Lar;kavatara Sutra, in Daisatz T. Suzuki, Studies in the Lar;kavatara
Sutra (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930; reprinted 1975), p. 173.
23. Ibid., p. 42.
24. asarrxviditakopadi-sthanana-vijiiaptikarrx ca tat.
sada sparSa-manaskara-vit-saf!1.jiia-cetananvitam.
TS, Verse 3, taken from Thomas E. Wood, Mind Only: A Philosophical and
Doctrinal Analysis of the Vijiianavada (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994),
p. 50. Henceforth this translation will be cited as Wood.
25. vedana,tatranivrtavyakrtaf!1. ca tat
tatha sparSadayas-tac-ca vartate srota-saughavat.
TS, Verse 4, Wood, p. 50.
26. Ibid., Verse 19, Wood, p. 53.
27. The difference between the alaya-vijiiana of Yogacara and the
unconscious of the Abhidharma is as follows: In the Abhidharmikas, external
stimulus produces vibration in the unconscious, whereas in the Yogacara the
ripening of the seed within the warehouse-consciousness creates agitation and
starts the process of transformation.
28. Wood, Verses 15-16.
29. Ibid., Verse 15.
30. Ibid., Verses 7, 19.
31. Ibid., Verse 8.
32. Ibid., Verses 15-16.
33. Edward Hamlin, 'Discourse in the Larikiivatiira Sutra' ,journal of Indian
Philosophy, Vol. 11 (1983), p. 281.
34. Although the term 'pari1'Jiima' was first used by Vasubandhu, the idea
of reciprocal dependence of the alaya-vijiiiina and the seven manifest
consciousnesses was first formulated by Asanga in Mahayanasarrtgraha.
35. The term' citta' is derived from the Sanskrit verb root ..J cit, meaning 'to
think'. This term is generally translated as 'mind' or 'thought'. In early Buddhist
literature, the term has been used synonymously with manas ('mind organ')
and vijfiiina ('consciousness'). It played a centra! role in Abhidharma
psychological analysis. Sarvastivadins classify it as one of their seventy-five
'dharmas'. The Y ogacaras clarify this term further. They use it as a synonym for
the iilaya-vijfiana or 'warehouse-consciousness'. When compounded with
'matra', it becomes' cittamatra', or 'mind only', the most important concept of
the Yogacara school.
'Caitta' is eqUivalent to that which is thought; it is content of thought.
36. Poussin, Vol. I, p. 296. Kalupahana notes: 'It may appear that there is
no such theory of relations (paccaya) in the early discourses and that this is an
innovation of the Abbidhamma. This is partly true. One certainly cannot fmd an
elaborate theory of relations during the early period. Yet even in their discursive
treatment, the discourses refer to relations such as roots (mularrt), dominances
(adhipati), immediacy (anantara), and so on. The Abhidhammikas, in contrast,
were compelled to focus on relations because of their extensive but non-
discursive enumeration and classification of events. Without a process of
synthesis, enumeration and classification would have left them with a mass of
disconnected events. The theory of relations thus serves the same function that
"dependent arising" (paticcasamuppiida) fulfilled in the early discourse.' David
]. Kalupahana, A Short History of Buddhist Philosophy (Honolulu, Hawaii:
University of Hawaii Press, 1992), p. 149.
37. For example, ko paccaycR ko hetu? What is the cause? What is the reason?
In the Paffhanas, twenty-four such paccayas are enumerated, and hetu is taken
to be one of these twenty-four. See Nyanatiloka Mahathera, Guide through the
Abhidhamma-Pitaka (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1971),
p.117.
38. A Manual of Abhidhamma, Narad Maha Thera, p. 374. A more
comprehensive definition of this pratyaya is found in the Sanskrit Abhidharma
tradition where it is defined as a universal condition, thereby making it possible
for the Ybgacara interpreters to include under this category a host of new types
of relations. '
Tbe Subjectivist-Objectivist Tbeory ojYogacaraBuddbism 93
39. angIferte ca tasminvi:jayakarasya Jnanena eva avarnddbatvad anartbika
babyartba sadbMvakalpana. BSBh, II.2.28.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., Il.2.30.
42. Ibid., Il.2.20, II.2.30.
5
Subjectivist-Transcendental
Theory of Advaita Vedanta
It is not an exaggeration to say that Sarpkara' s Advaita Vedanta is one of
the most widely known and influential schools of Indian philosophy. As
a system of Vedanta, Sarpkara's Advaita Vedanta is based upon the
Upanio?ads, the Gita, and the Brahmasutras. On these texts, Sarpkara
wrote exegetical commentaries in which he developed his philosophical
position and demonstrated that his position is in accordance with these
texts, besides advanCing independent arguments in favour of his own
position. His method of doing philosophy was very typically Vedantic.
There is no lack of rational argumentation in his writings, and what may
be absent there is more than compensated by his numerous commentators
and followers. The system developed over several centuries. By the end
of the sixteenth century, which is approximately 700 to 800 years after
Sarpkara the system reached its intellectual height. So my reference to
Advaita Vedanta in this chapter includes not only Sarpkara's own writing
but also the 'Writings of his followers, especially of those belonging to
what is known as the Vivara1).a interpretation of Advaita.
1
The Vedanta philosophy in general-and the Vedanta theory of
consciousness in particular--derives from a certain interpretation and
understanding of the Upanio?ads, which constitute a genre of texts capable
of being interpreted in a variety of ways. Thus, no one school of Vedanta
can lay an exclusive claim to fidelity to these texts. I have already noted
in the chapter on the Upanio?ads that much of the Upanio?adic texts
emphasize the coherence and unity of all things by identifying a single
fundamental principle which underlies everything and explicates
everything. The term 'brahman' in the Upanio?ads designates this
fundamental principle. This fundamental principle is also the core of
each individual, and this core has been designated as the 'atman'. In
. other words, the atman and the brahman are one.
2
The chapter on the
Upanio?ads provides a discussion of the brahman/atman from the
Subjectivist- Transcendental Tbeory of Advaita Vedanta 95
psychological, epistemological, and metaphysical perspectives
culminating in the conception of the brahman/atman as consciousness .
. In the Upani9adic accounts, atmanlbrahman is described not only as
existence (sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (Cmanda),3 but also as truth
(satyarrt), knowledge (jnanarrz), and infinite (anantarrt).4 The Advaita
Vedanta theory of consciousness is founded upon such descriptions.
Metaphysically it aims at showLflg that consciousness is not only being
(sat) and bliss; it is also the truth and the infinite. Clearly, all these are
very far from our everyday ordinary or even scientific perspective on
consciousness. It, therefore, is obligatory on the Advaita philosophers to
forge a link between-better yet a path from-these perspectives on
consciousness to their grand metaphysical thesis of the identity between
the subjective and the objective.
I
There is no doubt that our ordinary usages of' consciousness' have some
clear features. Some of these features were very famously captured in
the Western thought by Descartes. In the first place, consciousness is
ascribed to oneself in the first person Singular, which does not mean that
it is not ascribed to the other. However, as Strawson argued,5 ascribing
states of consciousness to oneself is not based upon evidence of one's
own behaviour while ascribing it to others is based on the observation
of the behaviour of others. This is the same as saying that consciousness
is ascribed immediately only to oneself without the mediation of the
ascription of the bodily states. Besides this immediacy, the Cartesian
tradition takes consciousness to be the inner as opposed to the body,
which is the outer; consciousness is private in the sense that one's
consciousness is immediately accessible only to one's own self and to
no one else. Let me further add to this well-known Cartesian thesis that
the reports about one's consciousness are infallible, whereas reports
about the bodies as well as the states of consciousness of others may be
mistaken. I think these three features, namely, immediacy, inner nature
of consciousness, and infallibility may be regarded as major features of a
widely prevalent conception of consciousness. Most discussions of
consciousness today begin with these. Sanskrit philosophical discourse
recognizes all three features: pratyaksatva, and
abadhitatva. Beginning with these three features, it would take a great
deal of philosophical critique to go beyond them to the full-fledged
96
Cit: Consciousness
Advaita understanding of consciousness. In one sense, Advaita retains
all these three. On the fully developed Advaita theory, cit is a p a r o ~ a
pratyak, and abadhita. However, the claim that cft is all three and the
Cartesian picture are still not quite the same. The Cartesian picture
grounds consciousness in the 'I', which itself is construed as an entity in
the world. As Husserl puts it: the Cartesian ego is really a part of the
world.
6
The Advaitic consciousness, far from being a part of the world, is
rather the foundation of the world. The Cartesian immediacy is an inner
perception by oneself of one's own conscious states, a feature which
Brentano sought to capture in his idea of inner perception. He notes:
'Every mental act is conscious; it includes within it a consciousness of
itself.'7 The Advaitic immediacy of consciousness is its self-luminosity,
which does not require an ego's introspective knowledge of oneself.
The Cartesian infallibility is the impossibility of doubting whether I am
conscious or not. The Advaitic abadhitatva is the impossibility of
assigning to consciousness any of the various forms of negation including
even difference or anyonyabhava.
8
Thus the Advaitic conception of
consciousness is vastly different from the Cartesian, although the Cartesian
view may serve as a point of departure in our attempt to understand the
Advaita Vedanta conception.
I cannot emphasize enough that the Advaita Vedanta philosophy is
not Cartesian. However, one can follow a possible path from the Cartesian
position to the Advaita thesis. The Cartesian philosophy, first of all, is
guilty of a metaphysical dualism between the body and the mind, the
outer and the inner, the public and the private. Philosophically, this
dualism has been subjected to various kinds of criticisms. The question
arises: what is the relation between the two? Causal interaction between
the body and the mind, matter and consciousness, is not any more
intelligible than a non-causal parallelism. Furthermore, if consciousness
were private to each ego, then each ego would derive his/her concept
of consciousness from his/her own case and there would be no way of
ascribing it to another ego. One would incurably be a prisoner of one's
own private mental states. If conscious-ness is infallible for the ego in
the sense that 'I am thinking' can never be mistaken, so also an expression
such as 'that patch of red' cannot but refer.
Attempts to overcome these Cartesian problems have been many
and varied. One such attempt is to deny consciousness altogether and to
identify it with a bodily state, perhaps with a brain state. Such an attempt
is scientifically respectable, but leaves the first person ascription of
consciousness and its immediacy totally unexplained. When I say I have
Subjectivist-Transcendental Tbeory of Advaita Vedanta 97
such and such conscious state, I do not necessarily know that I have
such and such brain state. The suspicion of incurable privacy is
. understandable but the way to avoid it is not to court physicalism but to
make consciousness a phenomenon which spans the divide between
the public and the private. Another way of overcoming the alleged privacy
of consciousness is to recognize that there is also something called bodily
consciousness, which is none other than a sentient being's awareness of
his/her own bodily movements, projects, and needs, all of which can be
brought under the concept of bodily intentionality or subjectivity. Body
then does not fall outside of consciousness as its absolute other, but
consciousness may be seen to progressively develop through various
stages, bodily, vital, psychic, and perhaps, what we may call spiritual.
When one escapes the confines of the Cartesian ego, one realizes that
consciousness is not necessarily an egological phenomenon, but is more
like aJield in which we all participate. There is not only the individual
consciousness, as when I ascribe it to myself, there is also a collective
and social consciousness as evidenced by the ascriptions of beliefs,
desires, and hopes to a collective entity such as a community. Members
of a community share in beliefs and thoughts, desires and hopes,
awareness of common problems and obstacles to be overcome.
These thoughts break the artificial boundaries of an ego, open it to
others, and we begin to realize that even though bodily pains, twitches,
and twinges may be private, consciousness is not, excepting under a
false attachment to one's narrow ego. The Advaita conception of
consciousness as a universal, limitless, self-luminous field in which we
all live and breathe, may now seem to be quite a plausible alternative
and not merely a speculative abstraction.
While social phenomena such as mutual understanding, sharing,
and in particular, sympathy point to a common trans-individual spirit,
one may also learn from the progress of the physical sciences. The lesson
that one may learn here is that the elementary particles constituting nature
(which includes both/ physical and biological realms) are not tiny bits of
matter as they were conventionally thought of, but rather point to a
progressive dematerialization of matter, meaning that all our ordinary
conceptions of matter begin to fail us when we try to apply them to
elementary constituents.
9
This has almost unaVOidably led to speculations
as to whether they are to be regarded, to begin with, as bits of energy,
and then by the same unavoidability think of that energy as something
spiritual. It is not possible to arrive at a conclusive decision regarding
these issues in this introduction. Suffice it to say, however, that here I
am concerned with making a plausible case for the AdYaita theory of
consciousness.
Another path away from the narrow egological consciousness is to
press the point generally made in contemporary depth psychology that
our conscious experiences derive from a large unconscious reservoir of
thoughts and emotions. Freudian psychology brought to our attention
small fragments of it. Jungian psychology emphasized other fragments
especially those which belong to the collective unconscious. In general,
taking into account many interesting phenomena connected with
creativity, one may venture the hypothesis that a much larger field of
consciousness underlies our limited surface mind and its operations.
II
_ It is important to remember at the very outset that consciousness and
mind
lO
are different, not simply for Advaita Vedanta, but for all systems
of Hindu philosophy. Mind is generally construed as an inner sense,!l a
product of material nature and owes its cognitive powers to the
preponderance of the sattva gutJ-a in it.
l2
Any plausible theory of consciousness must begin at the level of
psychology, then move to epistemology, and finally, culminate in
metaphysics. The Advaitic psychology draws a clear distinction between
the mind Cmanas), the intellect Cbuddhi), the ego sense (aharrtkara)13
and cit (consciousness). Cit, however, is not a sense organ; it is not an
instrument for producing an effect, such as Cognition; it is an ever-present
self-luminous entity, which while being self-luminous, is the source of
the manifestation of all things. If materialism is taken to signify a theory
that regards mind as a product of matter, most Indian systems could be
construed as materialistic. However, it is perhaps better to say that these
systems are naturalistic, given that the mind is a product of 'nature'
(prak!1z). After saying this I must add the caveat, namely, that the nature
in itself, in Sarpkhya as well as in Advaita Vedanta, is conceived as
consisting not of atoms, but of the three gUrJas, namely, sattva, rajas,
and tamas. Consequently, though it is true that their philosophy of mind
is naturalistic, it is also true that their conception of nature is not
materialistic. It is against this background, that the Advaita theory of
consciousness should be considered.
All this amounts to arguing that what the nature or natural elements
could produce must already be contained in nature. Causal production,
on the Advaita and the Sarpkhya accounts simply manifests what was
implicitly contained in the material cause, which, in turn, would imply
that knowledge that involves consciousness cannot be produced by
natural elements alone. The Nyaya-Vaise9ikas hold that such entities as
mind, sense organs, objects in the world, by coming in contact with
each other in an appropriate manner produce knowledge in the self. In
effect, they hold that these entities as well as their contacts-all of which
are natural entities-result in consciousness. On this account, even the
self, though non-conscious, becomes the seat where consciousness arises
out of natural causes. The Advaitins reject the natural and the causal
account of the origin of knowledge as well as of consciousness. Their
rejection is based on the belief that non-being cannot become being.
Consciousness cannot arise out of non-conscious conditions, although
non-conscious conditions may make consciousness manifest.14
Consciousness, on the Advaita view, is self-luminous, although its self-
luminosity may be covered up more or less, or uncovered more or less,
by natural elements.
The self is not a non-conscious substance. Among systems of Hindu
philosophy, consciousness may relate to the self in any of the three ways:
(1) as a property of the self, (2) as an act of the self, and (3) as its essence.
We have already seen that the Vaise9ikas argue that consciousness,
though a property of the self, is not an essential but rather a contingent
property. It is not always there in the self; it arises when appropriate
conditions are satisfied and disappears in the absence of those conditions.
In the state of deep sleep, according to the Vaise9ikas, the conditions
necessary for consciousness to arise do not obtain. Consequently, the
state of deep sleep lacks consciousness. Such a view is unacceptable to
an Advaitin, because it conflicts with his/her basic causal theory that an
effect is pre-existent in its material cause. In the case of deep sleep, the
Advaitins hold that consciousness is present, and such retrospective
judgements as 'I slept well'15 provide a testimony to its existence. Thus,
consciousness is neither a property of the self brought about by
appropriate causal conditions, nor is it an act of the self. We also know
that some Mimarpsakas, on the other hand, hold that consciousness is an
act of the self, which results in making its object known. It is from such
knownness of an object that, on this view, we infer the, occurrences of
an act of consciousness. The act is not directly available to inspection,
but is inferred on the basis of its result, which is the property of
'knownness' accruing to its object. This theory is no more plausible than
the VaiSe9ika theory. If the purpose of consciousness is Simply to manifest
its object, it cannot result in changing the object from the simple object
to the known object. If knowledge produces a new property in its object
called 'knownness', knowing this property would produce a further
property of knownness in it, thereby leading to an infinite regress. The
conclusion is that consciousness must not be construed as a process, or
as an activity, but only as a principle of manifestation, which, in short, is
the Advaita view.
On the Advaita view then consciousness is neither a property nor
an act of the self, but rather its constant ever-present essence. If by essence
one means a set of properties without which a thing cannot be what it is,
consciousness cannot be an essence of the self, for in that sense an
essence must be a property or a group of properties. However, in saying
'consciousness is the essence of the self', one may mean that the self is
consciousness, that the two are identical. This is indeed what the Advaitins
mean. However, any attempt to understand the Advaita thesis is fraught
with difficulties, given that their thesis is so remote from our ordinary
everyday understanding. In our everyday experiences, we hear people
say 'I am conscious', and not 'I am consciousness'. The former usage
substantiates the position. The in their metaphysical
theory adrn.it samavaya or the relation of inherence
16
between substance
and its qualities. Sarpkara in his raises various
difficulties in the theory of samavaya,I7 and replaces it with
the relation of tadatmyaor identity. Thus in 'the blue lotus' there do not
exist two entities, the colour 'blue' and the substance 'lotus', the former
inhering in the latter, but only one entity, the one substance, of which
'being blue' is an aspect. In this case, the blue and the lotus enter into an
identity. The same is true of 'I am conscious'. Consciousness in this case
is not a property inhering in myself, but rather the two, being conscious
and myself, are one and the same thing; there obtains between them,
not identity in the sense of oneness, but tadatmyawhich is a relation of
identity that is compatible with surface differences.
Why not then say 'I am consciousness'? I must point out that however
implausible the sentence may seem to be in English, the sentence, in
Sanskrit' cit ahaJ?l', is not only not implausible but has been used by
authors frequently. Such being the relation of identity between the T
and consciousness, the relation includes difference within it. Hence 'I
am consciousness' might be ontologically closer to the truth; it does not
express the complicated identity-cum-difference relation between
consciousness as such and the same consciouspess limited by the sense
of 'I'. The two are both identical and different, identity being the more
Subjectivist-Transcendental Theory of Advaita Vedanta 101
fundamental truth just as the space in itself and the space as limited by
the four walls of this room are both identical and different. Additiona,lly,
the distinction between consciousness and what passes in English
philosophical discourse as knowledge must be kept in mind in order to
understand the Advaita thesis. An exact translation of the word
'knowledge', as used in the West, will not be 'cit but 'pramajfiima',
which is a true cognition that arises in an appropriate manner; that is,
through a pramar:ta and by making its object known. IS The opposite of
prama is aprama, a cognition that is not true to its object; it is that which
takes its object as what the latter isnot. So when the Advaitin argues that
the self is identical with consciousness, she does not mean that prama
and aprama do not arise out of their respective causal conditions. Neither
of these two, that is, prama and aprama, is identical with cit. On the
contrary, citis common to both, and as we shall see later, in the absence
of cit, neither prama nor aprama would be possible. Thus, when the
Vaise1?ikas claim that consciousness is a property of the self, they are not
making a distinction between cit and knowledge. The Advaitins, on the
other hand, clearly distinguish between cit and knowledge. My
knowledge of a particular object arises and perishes; but cit is the
permanent nature of my self.
III
The Advaitic view of consciousness may be stated in the following theses:
1. Self-luminosity is the defining property of consciousness. The
Advaitins
I9
hold that self-luminosity is the fitness of
being immediately known. without being an object of any
cognition (avedyatve sati
svayaY(Lprakasasya In concrete terms, it amounts
to saying that consciousness is immediately experienced, even
though it is not an object of knowledge.
I
2. Consciousness is not intentional; that is, it is not consciousness
'of' and 'for' something. To be intentional means to have an
object. Pure consciousness is that from which all content has
been subtracted. Thus, intentionality is extrinsic to the nature
of consciousness.
3. Consciousness is not egological; that is to say, it does not centre
on an ego or 'I'. On the contrary, the ego is a mundane object
of consciousness.
4. Consciousness does not admit of any negations, for all
negations are possible objects of consciousness. Not having
antecedent negation (pragabhava), conscjousness is beginning':'
less. Not having consequent negation (dhva'f!lsabhava) ,
consciousness has no end. Consciousness is both beginningless
and has no end, it does not undergo any real change, for change
is a series of antecedent and consequent negations. Given that
consciousness does not admit of any mutual negation
(anyonyabhava) , it does not admit of any difference either;
thus it is free from all external and internal distinctions. There
are two varieties of external distinctions: heterogeneous
(vijatrya) and homogeneous (sajatrya). A physical object, say,
a chair, is different from (vijatrya) another physical object, say,
a table (distinction among objects of different classes). It (a
chair) is also different from (sajatZya) other chairs (distinction
among objects of the same class). In addition to these two,
consciousness does not possess any internal (svagata)
differentiation either. The difference of a part of the chair from
other parts is an internal difference. Consciousness does not
have parts, and accordingly, it does not, and cannot, possess
any kind of internal differentiation either. Hence, there is
nothing either similar or dissimilar to consciousness. If
one excludes all these differences, it would follow that
consciousness is one, without any internal differentiations, that
there are not many consciousnesses different from each other
but only one, and also that there is no real other to
consciousness. All others to consciousness are mere
appearances.
5. Consciousness is not temporal; time as well as space pertain
to the objects of consciousness, not to consciousness itself.
Not being in time, consciousness does not admit of any change,
while all change is a possible object of consciousness.
6. Consciousness and being are identical. For things other than
consciousness, 'to be' on the Advaita theory is 'to be
manifested' by or 'to be an object' of consciousness. But
consciousness itself is the source of being, that from which all
entities derive their being. If one distinguishes between Being
and beings (as for example, has been done by Heidegger),
then for Advaita, Being is consciousness, while all objects are
entities.
7. Consciousness is not only Being but also the highest value,
good, and bliss. Any value that attaches to objects in the sense
of well-being that is brought about by objects, is passing or
transitory, but on realizing one's self as pure consciousness,
the Advaita argues, one achieves the highest good and enjoys
the highest bliss, by reaching which nothing remains to be
reached. Thus, in the Advaita theory of consciousness,
metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology come together.
A review of the central theses about consciousness outlined above
reveals that the Advaita theory of consciousness is in one respect simpler
and in another respect more complex than all the theories discussed
until now. It is simpler because the description of consciousness rests
upon one predication, that is, manifestation or prakasa. It is often
described in the Advaita literature as prakasa eka rasa, meaning that
- which has only one rasa or essence, that is, manifestation. It is not a
thing or a substance which manifests, for then there would be a difference
between substance and its qualities, and that difference would be
manifested by rp.e principle that anything that becomes an object of
consciousness could not belong to the nature of consciousness. Any
difference of whatever kind-whether difference of consciousness from
the world, or of one self from another, or of one state of consciousness
from another-would really be a possible object of consciousness.
Therefore, these differences cannot belong to its nature. But once one
expels all differences from consciousness, there results something without
any beginning and end, and so does not undergo any change. For after
all, beginning implies prior absence (pragabhava), end implies posterior
absence (dhva'f!1Sabhava). In change, something which was not, comes
into being, and that which is goes out of existence. All these absences or
negations are objective categories (e.g., a i s e ~ i k a padarthas) and,
-therefore, are possible objects of consciousness. As objects of
consciousness, they do not characterize consciousness itself.
Consciousness as a resl1lt becomes sheer presence, without any absence
corrupting its nature, sheer being without any non-being. Here then the
three concepts, namely, existence, presence, and manifestation are
identified. To exist, for consciousness, is to be present, not to anything
other than itself, but self-presence, while everything else is presented
to it.
Several things about consciousness so conceived must be noted.
Things in the world or in nature (prakrti or sa'f!1Sara) come and go,
arise, and last for some time (not necessarily for an instan!), and perish;
104 Cit; Consciousness
they are different from each other and they contain internal differences
as well. But all these entities are known by consciousness, so
consciousness is radically different from them, as 'light is from darkness.
The empirical human being, the person, its body as well as such mental
states as cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, love, hatred, his/her actions
and the consequences of his/her actions, in sum, the person's role as a
knower (jnata), an agent (kana), and an enjoyer (bbokta), all constitute
an interrelated system known as the world (sarrzsara). Thus the world,
as well as any constituent of it, is a possible object of consciousness, and
so it is not consciousness in itself. The judgement 'I am conscious' is,
therefore, based on a confusion (moha) between different categories.
In the preamble to his commentary on the Brahmasutras, Sarpkara
. categorically declares that the self and the not-self, the two fundamental
components of human experience, are as opposed to each other as light
and darkness. The self can never become the not-self and vice versa.
Nor can the properties of the one be superimposed
20
on the other. In our
everyday experiences, however, the two are confused, and assume such
forms as 'I am this', and 'This is mine'. In the first form, one forgets the
distinction between the self and the body; in the latter; the attributes of
the self and those of the body are mixed up, thereby giving rise to a
variety of superimpositions: it may be the superimposition of (a) the
body on the self, e.g, 'Iamaman', 'I ama woman'; (b) the properties of
the body on the self, e.g, 'I am fat', 'I am thin'; (c) mental states such as
desires, doubt, pleasure, pain on the self, e.g, 'I am happy', 'I am
virtuous'; and (d) the properties of the sense organs on the self, for
example, 'I am blind', 'I am deaf'. In short, the superimposition not only
assumes the form of the 'I' but also of the 'mine'. The former is the
superimposition of the substance (dharmi), the latter of the attribute
(dharma). The reciprocal superimposition of the self and the not-self,
and of the properties of the one on the other, results in the bondage of
the empirical self. The empirical self acts and enjoys because of erroneous
identification of the inner self with the inner sense (antaqkara1Ja).
Ip short, the word 'I' is a result of confusion between undifferentiated
consciousness and the inner sense (antaqkara1Ja) belonging to the
person. Once dlese superimpositions are dissolved and the metaphysical
confusions removed, consciousness is seen to be one and eternal,
differenceless, and yet manifesting all differences, the same in all persons
though appearing to be different. The thesis is apparently very abstract:
we do not in our everyday existence experiens;e or recognize this one
differenceless consciousness. All our consciousness that we are
acquainted with is peimeated by differences. It always has a locus
(asraya) and an object (v4aya) , so that it always has the form, 'my
consciousness of this jar'. In the same way there are many properties
which qualify any consciousness at any moment. It is either tactile, or
visual, or has some other sensuous modality. Or, it is purely intellectual
which the Vedantin and the Sarplillya call buddhi. Or, it exhibits degrees
of clarity or confusion. It is either waking, or dreaming, or in a state qf
deep sleep. Alternatively, it is either consciousness drunk or
consciousness sober. But these differences and modalities, on the Advaita
theory, pertain not to consciousness per se, but to those conditions and
limitations, which appear to affect it. We know, for example, that though
space is one, owing to different limiting adjuncts it appears to be many.
Likewise, we know that although the moon in the sky is one, its reflections
in many different waters are many. The Advaitins similarly insist that
consciousness is one with its only defining essence, namely,
manifestation; it is not an abstract truth but the only principle that not
only underlies all our experiences but also makes them possible while
retaining its independence from them all.
IV
In order to understand the Advaita Vedanta position and the textual
exposition more precisely, we must distinguish between the vrttis (the
mental modifications), cit (suddhacaitanya or pure consciousness), and
the sak$in (the witness-consciousness). I shall begin with a brief review
of what these concepts signify in Advaita Vedanta prior to unpacking
and developing their roles in Advaita philosophy.
The V(ttis cannot, and must not, be identified either with the pure
consciousness or the witness-consciousness. The function of vrtti is to
remove the veil of ignorance that covers the object to be known. V:rtti at
times has been translated as 'psychosis'.2
1
Such a translation, however,
has pejorative psychological connotations, and is, therefore, misleading.
V:rtti refers to an epistemic process or act. Therefore, it makes more
sense to translate it as a 'mental mode'. The Advaitins make a distinction
between two kinds of mental modes. These modes are transformations
either of the inner sense (antal?karar;a) or of nescience (amdya). When
the activity of the inner sense is present-say in the perception of a
table, or in the perception of a chair, etc.-cognition is the result of a
modification of the inner sense (antal?karar;avrtti). When the activity
of the inner sense is absent and yet there is presence of cognition, for
example, in the illusory perception of shell as silver, cognition is due to
a mode of nescience (avidyilVrttZ). These modes, truly speaking, become
cognitions Cjiiimas) upon manifestation.
Nescience veils the self or pure consciousness and transforms itself
into different modes. Pure consciousness in Advaita is the light that reveals
the object. The Advaitins argue that without the lustre of pure
consciousness, all objects, physical and mental, apparent and actual,
merge in the darkness of nescience. Things are manifest in the universe
through the light of consciousness, because everything shines through
its radiance. Where there is no consciousness, there is no manifestation
of any kind. Strictly speaking, pure consciousness can know of no
absence, as there is nothing else besides it. The cognizing subject and
the object alike are manifested through its radiance. It is through this
light that the subject knows the object and the object becomes known to
the subject. Every act of cognition is an expression of pure consciousness
through a mental mode, hence the distinction between pure knowledge
and empirical (modal) knowledge. The Advaitins call the first of the two
kinds herein distinguished svariipa jiiima and the second one vrtti jiiana.
The former is self-luminous, self-established, pure, and foundationaP2
The latter is subject to change and appears in relation to particular objects.
The Advaitins hold that all objects-regardless of whether they are known
or unknown-are in the long run objects of s a k ~ i n (witness-
consciousness).
Etymologically s a k ~ i n means direct and immediate perception,
better yet, it is that which directly or immediately perceives, the passive
observer of perception, as opposed to a doer. It refers to a witness in the
sense of the phenomenologically pure observer; the observer who
observes without bringing anything to the observation. It signifies seeing
without being the agent of an act. It is disinterested observer. In short,
s a k ~ i n is a kind of enduring, passive, and unchanging awareness that
observes and reveals mental cognitions and physical objects as well as
witnesses all changes and activities that take place due to the intellect. It
signifies the self, which though not itself involved in the cognitive process,
functions as a disinterested, uninvolved onlooker or witness-
consciousness.
23
Pure consciousness on account of being covered by themuItiplicity
of names and forms cannot associate itself with the objects of cognition.
Instrumentality of the inner sense is required to establish its connection
with the object. The Advaitins hold that the inner sense, located within
the body, is constituted of sattva, a very fine transparent matter; it is
divided into three parts, so to speak. One part remains inside the body,
the second part makes contact with several objects, and the third part
resides between these two making the whole a unit. The interior part is
the ego, the intervening part performs the cognitive action, and the part
in contact with the empirical objects makes them manifest as objects of
a cognitive act. Pure consciousness is reflected in the inner sense on
account of the transparent sattva and according to the three parts of the
inner sense, it is manifested in three different ways: as the cognizer, the
cognitive operation, and the cognition. Vedanta Paribha$a states:
Accordingly, consciousness is threefold: the consciousness conditioned
by the content, the consciousness conditioned by the means of
knowledge, and the consciousness conditioned by the cognizer. To
speak of them individually, the consciousness conditioned by the
pitcher is the consciousness conditioned by the content, the
consciousness conditioned by a mode of the internal organ is the
consciousness conditioned by the means of knowledge, and that
conditioned by the internal organ is the consciousness conditioned
by the cognizer. 24
Thus, the Advaitins speak of the threefold stratification of conscious-
ness: consciousness conditioned by25 the object (vi$ayacaitanya) ,
consciousness conditioned by the means or instmments of right cogni-
tion (pramar;acaitanya), and consciousness conditioned by the inner
sense (pramatrcaitanya). Consciousness conditioned by an object (say,
a pitcher) is the object consciousness; consciousness conditioned by the
means of knowledge is the cognitive consciousness; and consciousness
conditioned by the inner sense is the cognizer consciousness
(pramatrcaitanya). Thus, consciousness, although one, on account of
these different activities within the inner sense, appears as many.
To preserve the integrity of their metaphysical theory that the only
reality is the all-pervading differenceless consciousness, in their account
. I
of perception, the Advaitins develop an identity theory, according to
which in a perceptual cognition, the subject and the object achieve an
identity.26 They argue that the subject of cognition is the same
consciousness as conditioned by the cognitive mechanisms belonging
to the empirical percipient, just as the object of cognition is also the
same consciousness as conditioned by what we regard as the external
thing. Within this general framework, the Advaita Vedanta introduces
the notion ofa modification of the inner sense, vrtti, whose function is
to remove the veil of ignorance that conceals the thing to be known.
108
Cit: Consciousness
Although in all cognition; the object is manifested by consciousness in
its role as the witness-consciousness, external, things are not directly
manifested by the witness-consciousness. An appropriate modification
of the inner sense intervenes. However, a mental mode being inert cannot
by itself illuminate objects. It leads to illumination on account of its
association with pure consciousness.
Thus, in the perception of an external object, the object is cognized
via its association with the subject-consciousness. Antal;JkaratJavrtti, a
mode of the inner sense, effects such an association. In perceptual
cognition, the inner sense assumes the form of the object27 resulting in
an identity between the consciousness conditioned by the subjective
cognitive mechanism and the consciousness conditioned by the object
that is known; this identity, they argue, is the perceptual cognition.
The Advaitins provide a picturesque description of the process of
perception against the setting of the identity of consciousness:
Just as the water of a tank, having come out of an aperture, enters a
number of fields through channels assuming like those [fieldsl a
quadrangular or any other form, so also the internal organ, which is
characterized by light, goes out [of the bodyl through the door [sensel
of sight, and so on, and [afterl reaching the location of the object, say,
a pitcher, it is modified in the form of the object like a pitcher. This
modification [of the internal organl is called a mental mode (vrtti). In
the case of inferential cognition, and so on, however, there is no going
out of the internal organ to the location of fire, because fire, and so on
[other inferred objectsl, are not in contact with the sense of sight, and
so on [other sense organsl.
Thus in the case of the perceptual cognitions such as 'this is a pitcher',
because the consciousness conditioned by the pitcher and the
consciousness conditioned by the mental mode in the form of a pitcher.
are located in one and the same place [outside the bodyl, the
consciousness conditioned by both [the object perceived and the vrtti
1 is one. This is because the modification of the internal organ and the
object like pitchers, although haVing the capacity of differentiation
[between the consciousness conditioned by the vrtti and the
consciousness conditioned by the object], do not give rise to any
difference on account of their being located in one and the same place
[where the object exists]. For this very reason, ether conditioned by a
pitcher in a monastery is not different from the ether conditioned by a
hall in the monastery [inspite of being two distinct limiting adjunctsJ.28
To be specific, the cognitive process of external visual perception
contains the follOWing five steps:
1. The inner sense comes in contact with the organ of vision,
reaches out to the object and becomes non-different from it.
2. The mental mode removes the veil of nescience that had been
hiding the object from the perceiver.
3. The consciousness underlying the object, being manifested as
a result of the removal of the veil of ignorance reveals the
object.
4. The mind effects an identity between the consciousness con-
ditioned by the object and the consciousness conditioned by
the subject.
5. As a result, the cognizer perceives the object.
29
Thus, cognition of an object is not possible in the absence of the
consciousness that underlies it. .
It is important to keep in mind in this context that although the
appropriate mental modification or the vrtti manifests the object, the
mental mode itself is directly manifested by the witness-consciousness:
... All modifications of the inner sense, being known by the witness-
consciousness, are immediately apprehended .... 30
When consciousness is reflected in the mental mode, say, in the
perception of a pitcher, there results a judgement, in the form 'this is a
pitcher' . A second mental modification is not needed to know the initial
modification. When I know an object, I also know that I know that object.
The apprehension 'I know that I know the object', for the Advaitins,
unlike the Naiyayikas, is not revealed by the finite individual. It is
apprehended by the witness-consciousness. It is important to note here
that knowledge, for the Advaitins, is an event in time. When I apprehend
an object, the object is not the only thing that is revealed. It is accompanied
by an apprehension of apprehension. When I say this is a chair, I not
only know the chair, but also know that I know that this is a chair. The
two apprehensions ~ u r simultaneously. 'This is a chair' is an instance
of perception; however, the perception itself is apprehended by the
witness-consciousness. Here, as noted earlier, the Advaitins differ from
the Naiyayikas, who argue that knowing is a temporal act directed towards
an object. It is a property of the self and is expressed in judgements such
as 'this is a chair'. Such cognitions reveal only the object; they do not
reveal either the cognizer or the cognition itself. The 'vyavasaya' or the
primary cognition, for them, is revealed by a second introspective
awareness in the form 'I know the chair', or 'I have the knowledge of
110
Cit: Consciousness
the chair'. The second cognition or the cognition of the primary cognition
is called' anuvyavasaya' . Whereas the object of the primary cognition is
the chair, the direct object of the second cognition is the primary cognition,
the indirect objects being the self and the object of the primary cognition.
The Advaitins argue that consciousness in itself being self-revealed and
self-established, cannot become an object of another consciousness. Thus,
there cannot be consciousness of consciousness or vrtti of vrtti. In other
words, while consciousness does not directly manifest a thing in the
world like a pitcher, and requires the mediation of an appropriate v.rtti,
the vrtti itself is manifested directly by consciousness without any other
mediation. The reason for this contention lies deep in the Advaita theory
of ignorance, which is not only an important part of its metaphysics but
also of its epistemology. An empirical object such as a jar or a table,
when it is not being known or perceived is covered up by ignorance
which on the Advaita theory is a beginningless, positive entity, removable
only by knowledge (anadibhavarnpatve sati jiiananivartyavidya).31 It
is beginningless, because when one says 'I am ignorant', it does not
make sense to ask when did your ignorance begin.3
2
The Advaitins argue
that aVidya is positive, although the prefix of the term 'avidya' (a +
vidya) creates the misleading impression that it is a negative entity, a
mere absence of knowledge (abhavopadanam ajiianam). They maintain
that such statements as 'I do not know X (owing to the rule that
knowledge of an absence presupposes knowledge of the counter positive
of that absence)', do not testify to the absence of knowledge, because to
know the absence of the knowledge of X, one must already have the
knowledge of X-in which case there would be no absence of the
knowledge of x. Therefore, what one perceives in 'I do not know X' is
not the absence of the knowledge of X, but a positive ignorance
concealing X. Additionally, the Advaitins take great pains to demonstrate
that ignorance is positive in order to underscore the point that it is different
from the non-being. The non-being is unreal; it does not have any
objective counterpart. Ignorance, on the other hand, though false,33 is
not non-being; it is a fact of experience. They take ignorance to be the
material cause of the phenomenal world; its positivity bestows a degree
of reality to it, albeit only empirical.
The Advaitins' thesis is based on the belief that anything that does
not possess unknown existence (ajiiatasatta) is revealed by the
alone Conversely, those objects that are capable
of haVing the status of unknown existence (i.e., that can be concealed
by ignorance), need the mediation of a mental mode in order to manifest.
Subjectivist- Transcendental Tbeory of Advaita Vedanta 111
Prior to its manifestation, an object, say, a pitcher, is unknown, insofar
as it is concealed. A mental modification destroys the cover that conceals
the object and makes it manifest. A pitcher, for example, may exist without
being perceived. Therefore, a pitcher is known through a mode of the
inner sense. Affective states, for example, pleasure and pain do not
possess unknown existence; they last as long as they are revealed. One
does not say, 'I am happy, but 1 do not know it.' Nor does one say, 'I am
sad, but I do not know it.' One apprehends one's happiness directly, as
long as it lasts. In other words, my happiness is revealed to me only as
known but not as haVing had an unknown existence prior to being
known. Thus, the Advaitins argue that the mental states, such as pleasure
and pain, are apprehended by the witness-consciousness alone. Likewise,
illusory objects do not possess unknown existence; they do not exist out
there when they are not perceived. The essence of an illusory object
consists in being perceived (esse est percipz). An illusory object is never
hidden; thus the question of reavealing it by removing the veil of
unknownness does not arise. The point that the Advaitins are trying to
make is as follows: knowledge does not create the object; it simply
manifests the object. Therefore, prama1Jas are needed to remove the
veil that had been hiding the object. An illusory object is never covered;
it does not enjoy unknown existence, so no prama1Ja is necessary for
the revelation of an illusory object; there is no passage involved from a
prior state of unknown existence to its subsequent knownness. Finally,
the Advaitins argue that ignorance also does not exist as unknown. One
does not say 'I am ignorant but 1 do not know that 1 am ignorant.' They
argue that nescience is given to us in our experience; it is not, and cannot
be, established by any prama1Ja (means of true cognition). In other
words, it is prasiddha, not prama1Jasiddha. Prama1Jas give rise to
empirical knowledge and make known what was previously unknown.
'Previously unknown', on the Advaita thesis amounts to saying that it
was 'veiled by nescience'. Given that empirical knowledge in itself is
the result of a mental/modification, it is by its very nature opposed to
nescience. Therefore, empirical knowledge gained through any of the
prama1Jas does not, and cannot, reveal nescience; nescience is
manifested directly by the witness-consciousness. In the state of deep
sleep, though there is no I-consciousness, ignorance is directly
experienced in the form 'I did not know anything'. This experience points
. to the knowledge 'I know that 1 did not know' which shows that
nescience is established by the witness-consciousness.
112 Cit: 'Consciousness
Though the witness-consciousness establishes ignorance, it is a seer
(d,sta); it is not a cognizer (pramata). This explains why witness-
knowledge is not regarded as 'true cognition' (pramajiiana). In this
/ context, the Advaitin distinction between awareness and knowing must
be noted. Whereas witness-knowledge is a of awareness, cognizer-
knowledge is knownness of an object that was previously unknown.
The witness-consciousness apprehends the object it establishes.
However, the object it apprehends did not enjoy a prior unknown status.
Thus, the Advaitins argue, witness-consciousness' knowledge is not
opposed to ignorance. It is knowledge that is generated via the mental
mode, that is, the modal knowledge that is opposed to ignorance. This
also explains the difference between the object established by the
witness-consciousness and the object established by
a means of true cognition (prama1Jasiddhavastu) ..
Empirical knowledge, inAdvaita, must meet the following conditions.
First, consciousness must be reflected in a mental mode, which has the
form of the object being cognized; second, consciousness must
apperceive what is given to the senses with the help of the intellect; and
finally, consciousness must illuminate the object with the aid of the inner
sense. Objects, irrespective of whether they are internal or external,
cannot manifest on their own. They are concealed by ignorance prior to
being known. To be an object of knowledge then requires that this
concealment by ignorance be destroyed. The appropriate vrtti achieves
this job. And while the vrtti does its job, the witness-consciousness
manifests not only the vrtti, but also its object. Hence the expression 'I
know the jar' really expresses the fact that pure consciousness as limited
by my inner sense manifests a vrtti of the same inner. sense while this
vrtti removes the concealment of its object, the jar.
A cognition, the Advaitins hold, is either direct or indirect. Whereas
with respect to the witness-consciousness, cognition is always direct,
with respect to the object, on the other hand, the cognition may be either
direct or indirect. When the object is directly known, as in 'this is a
pitcher', the knowledge of the pitcher is immediate. When the object is
indirectly known, as when one infers 'the hill has fire because it possesses
smoke', the knowledge of the fire is mediated by the perception of smoke.
However, all knowledge, regardless of whether it is immediate or
mediate, is the result of a mental mode. To know an object amounts to
some sort of unveiling resulting in its revelation and this revelation is the
goal of all epistemic endeavours.
Subjectivist- Transcendental Theory oj Advaita Vedanta 113
WrJle the distinction between pure consciousness and vrtti is a dear
distinction between two ontologically different categories, between the
subject and an object, or between, as the Advaitins put it, drsta and
drsya, the distinction between pure consciousness and the witness-
consciousness is not a distinction between two categories but between
two different roles played by the same thing. The consciousness in itself
and by itself is the suddhacaitanya. Its only function, as pointed out
earlier, is manifestation. But given certain metaphysical constraints such
as the occurrence of mental modes or vrttis (cognitive and pleasure and
pain as affective) in a person's psychophysical life, of illusory objects,
and the beginningless aVidya or ignorance which conceals the true nature
of things, the same pure consciousness plays the role of the witness-
consciousness, which immediately, that is to say, without further
mediation of a v,rtti, manifests all these, namely, the cognitive and affective
mental modes (vrttis) , illusory objects, and beginningless positive
ignorance. What the Advaitins mean thereby is that when I say 'I am
ignorant of such and such object', my ignorance having its locus in my
consciousness as its object, the such and such object, is directly manifested
by the witness-consciousness as belonging to me. Likewise, in my
judgements 'I am perceiving', 'I am knowing that jar', 'I am happy', 'I
am in pain', such objects as a vrtti, a pleasure, and a pain, in order to be
manifested, do not need any further vrtti, because their being is never
concealed by avidya; by their very existence they stand unconcealed
before the witness-consciousness. In the absence of the witness-
consciousness there will be no way to apprehend cognitions. The
Advaitins hold that a cognition cannot be said to be apprehended by
introspection, because in that case we would require a second cognition
to reveal the original cognition, and a third cognition to reveal the second
one, and so on-an infinite regress of cognitions. Thus this eternal,
ubiquitous and self-manifesting witness-consciousness Simultaneously
establishes all objects. So, VivaralJ.a states: 'Everything is an object of the
witness-consciousness, either as known or as unknown. '34 It is the starting
I
point of all ontological and epistemological inquiries, and thus serves as
the basis of all knowledge. It is the basic presupposition of all knowledge;
it is the necessary condition for the very possibility of judgements such
as 'I know' and 'I do not know'. In sum, it is the same identical
consciousness which metaphysically is the nature of atman-brahman,
and epistemologically makes all manifestations, and so knowledge,
possible, but which, in a special epistemological context, plays the role
of witness-consciousness. Pure consciousness does not need any proof;
114
Cit: Consciousness
it is self-certifying. It is immediate. It is the only reality; it is one without
a second.
v
The Advaita Vedanta thesis that consciousness is the only reality is more
easily said than understood. In trying to understand it, it has to be taken
together with several other connected theses that the Advaita Vedanta
asserts:
1. All this is brahman (sarvam idarrz khalu brahma) and so con-
sciousness;35
2. none of this is brahman (brahman is not this, not thiS);36
3. the world is a superimposition on consciousness;
4. the material cause of the world is avidya (ignorance), which,
in this role, is the same as the prakrti of Sa.rpkhya; and
5. the world is a real transformation of aVidya and an apparent
transformation of the brahman, which the Advaitins arrive at
by combining 3 and 4.
The Advaita thesis that the brahman as consciousness is everywhere,
that it enters into all entities whatsoever, that it is the innermost nature
of all things, can be understood only if we understand all the above five
propositions conjointly.
When one asks what is the stuff of which things are made and
proceeds to give an answer in terms of familiar metaphysical positions,
for example, materialism or atomism, one is asking a particular kind of
question--one is looking for the stuff in a particular sense. In this sense
of the stuff, the Advaita answer is: that stuff is prakrti or aVidya. So far
the Advaita school agrees with the Sarpkhya system and differs from the
Vaiseijiika school. But there is another sense in which the stuff of all
things according to Advaita is nothing other than the brahman. In this
sense, to say that the stuff of all things is the brahman, is to say that the
truth or reality underlying all things is the brahman. The Advaita asserts
both the above theses. When the Advaitins assert that the things of the
world, for example, tables, chairs, rocks, etc., are products of ignorance,
they are not saying that, like the illusory snake, these empirically real
things magically, totally inexplicably, appear owing to our ignorance of
the brahman. The Advaita thesis is more substantial than this. In holding
Subjectivist-Transcendental Theory of Ad va ita Vedanta 115
that the world is due to ignorance, they are asserting that all empirical
things of the world, in fact the empirical world itself, may be explained
scientifically as progressive transformation of prakrti which, for Advaita,
is also the original avidya. The Advaitins further add that this avidya or
prakrti is superimposed upon the brahman, its asraya and vi0aya are
both the brahman.
37
Consequently, in this context, the Advaitins advance
two kinds of explanations conjointly: according to the Hrst one, the world
is to be explained as the transformation of avidya; according to the
second, as the false appearance of the brahman.
38
The Advaita thesis that everything is consciousness, that it is the
stuff of all things, should not be construed to mean that the things consist
neither of atoms nor molecules, nor of the three gUrJas of which the
Sarpkhya prakrti is constituted, but of consciousness, because
consciousness is not the kind of thing that we can figure as constituent
of things on par with atoms or gU1jas. What Advaitins mean is that any
worldly thing, or the world itself, for the explanation of its appearance,
requires not only positing the mulavidya of which it is a modification,
but also the pure self-shining consciousness on which this avidya is
superimposed and but for which this aVidya itself would not be possible.
In this sense, consciousness is the foundation, the basis of all things, in
the absence of which nothing could be there for nothing would be
manifested.
Against the Advaita position outlined above, one may raise the
following objection: the account seems to confuse between epistemology
and metaphysics. The view that the empirical world is a real
transformation of prakrti is a metaphysical thesis. However, the thesis
that aVidya or prakrti depends on pure consciousness for its manifestation
(in the sense that but for consciousness avidya itself would not be known)
is an epistemological thesis. So the conclusion that the empirical world
is an apparent transfor-mation of the brahman is partly metaphysical
and partly epistemological. As a matter of fact, when the Advaitins
contend that the locuq or the asraya of avidya is the brahman, they
seem to be asserting a metaphysical thesis. But when they immediately
justify it by saying that avidya would not have been known (as in the
judgement 'I am ignorant') but for consciousness, that is an
epistemological thesis, not pertaining to the being of avidya, but
pertaining to the manifestation of the knowledge of aVidya.
The objection really brings out the innermost nature of the Advaita
thesis. On the Advaita view, being and consciousness are one, such that
the ultimate condition of the possibility of knowledge is also the ultimate
116
Cit: Consciousness
being. To say that sat and the cit are identical is to concede that
metaphysics and epistemology, in the final analysis, cannot be separated.
In simultaneously holding that all entities have their being in
consciousness and that all entities derive their manifestation from the
self-manifesting consciousness, the Advaitins are not making two separate
and independent theses; the two are really identical. The above objection,
therefore, is not really an objection against the Advaita position; it rather
brings out the real nature of the Advaita position.
There is also another aspect of this convergence of metaphysics and
epistemology that must be pointed out. In the case of empirical objects
in the world, 'to be' or 'to exist' and 'to be known' do not coincide. In
other words, empirical things may exist; however, they may exist as
unknown. Therefore, epistemology and metaphysics do not coincide.
But in the case of avidya, 'to be' and 'to be known' coincide such that
ignorance does not have unknown existence; it only exists as known.
So at this level epistemology and metaphysics coincide. The being of
ignorance is also what makes its manifestation possible; this being is
nothing else than pure consciousness.
Have we then understood the Advaita thesis that consciousness is
all-pervading (sarva vyapf), the inner truth of all things, the stuff of which
all things are made, etc. In answer, I shall reiterate what I have stated
earlier: in order to understand the Advaitin thesis of consciousness, one
must understand conjointly the five theses outlined at the outset of this
section. The Advaitins will contend that in the long run one truly
understands this thesis only when one has an immediate experience
(aprok!fa anubhiltz) of the presence of the self in all beings and of all
beings in the self. It is true that some such intuitive experience, or at
least the possibility of some such experience, is what the Advaita
philosophical thesis articulates. But when one holds that one truly
understands that thesis only when one has that experience, one makes
it impossible for most of us to understand it. I would rather maintain that
the two supplement each other. The philosophical position claims to
give a plausible, conceptual interpretation of the experience, and in the
supposed experience the philosophical position is verified and
confirmed.
Weare still trying to make sense of the Advaita pOSition that
everything is consciousness. It may-be claimed that this position is no
better or no worse off than the materialist thesis that all is matter. Let us
pause briefly to evaluate the strengths and, the weaknesses of the
materialist position. Irrespective of whether we take the thesis that such
things of the world as trees, mountains, jars, stones, are made of matter
as true or false, the thesis certainly makes sense. These are the cases
which a materialist, when he advances inferences in support of his
position, can cite as supporting examples d ~ t a n t a ) to substantiate his
own position; he can argue that' everything is made of material elements
because it is made of joining together of parts, just as pitcher, etc.'. But
the weakness of the materialist position becomes obvious when one
extends it to such things as consciousness, knowledge, desires, efforts,
and so on. It does not intuitively make sense to say that these things are
made of material elements (atoms, molecules). In order to make some
sense of it, the materialist has to argue that consciousness, knowledge,
and so on, are only epiphenomena or apparent products of matter. Now,
consider the Advaita position. The Advaita thesis that everything is made
of consciousness makes sense of one's inner life, of one's self, one's
awareness, cognitions, pleasure, pain, desire, etc. But the thesis loses its
initial plausibility when confronted with sundry material objects such as
trees, chairs, etc., and not unlike the materialist, it has only one recourse
open at its disposal, namely, to demonstrate that the material things of
the world are but apparent transformations of that consciousness. This
shows to what extent the two philosophical theses, of the Advaitins and
the materialists, confront not only the same kind of problem, but also
that they attempt to meet the problem in similar ways. In what respect
then is the Advaita position better off?
In this context, keeping in mind an important difference between
materialism and Advaita Vedanta might provide further insights into the
question under consideration. Although a materialist regards
consciousness as an epiphenomenon or a mere appearance, he has, in
his ontology, no place for such a category (epiphenomenon or mere
appearance). In a materialist world-view there are only physical entities
but no appearances, because a physical object appears only to a conscious
being. If there are no appearances, there are no mere appearances.
However, for an Advaitin, the reality may appear to be what it is not. It
I
is not that an Advaitin does not face a problem here, because the Advaitin
must explain the question, to which consciousness the mere appearances
are presented. And since the finite human consciousness is not the pure
consciousness, which alone is real, the finite consciousness must be an
appearance. But an appearance to whom? We know that in order to
answer this kind of question, the Advaitin takes recourse to the concept
of aVidya and the concept of the witness-consciousness. But the
materialist, in order to account for mere appearance or epiphenomenon,
118
Cit: Consciousness
cannot appeal to any such concept. Thus, while initially it seemed as
though the materialist and the Advaitin have equally difficult problems,
the Advaitin is better of because hel she can give an explanation of reality
appearing to be what it is not, while the- materialist has no such
explanatory concepts available to him/her.
The comparison shows that a grand monistic philosophy which
admits only of one kind of reality, irrespective of whether it is the matter
or the spirit, faces the most difficult task of explaining even the
appearance of dualism. But a dualistic philosophy that recognizes both
consciousness and matter as real has no such problem because it does
not have to account for the phenomenon of monism. In other words, a
monism hidden behind phenomena is not itself borne out by the data of
experience. So a dualistic philosophy is under no constraint to explain
monism. A monistic philosophy, on the other hand, is under the constraint
to explain why matter and spirit are presented to be two distinct and
different realities. This is not to suggest that dualism has no problems.
The problem of dualism lies elsewhere. It has to prOVide a plausible
account of how the two orders of realities, matter and spirit, are related.
How is it that if there are two distinct orders of reality that consciousness
is exhibited in only a certain bodily form and also why is it that bodily
changes affect, even may eliminate, consciousness? To say that material
processes produce, cause, or bring about consciousness is only to assert
that there is a causal relation between the two but not to explain how a
causal relation between so different orders is possible. We understand
how molecular motion causes heat or temperature to rise, but we do not
understand how bodily changes can either change or even destroy
consciousness, nor do we understand how conscious states such as
anxiety may cause ulcer in one's stomach. We do not understand how
such causal relations are possible on the dualistic basis. The materialist
can make it intelligible, though within limits, for helshe cannot, as I
have stated earlier, make sense of how material processes cause mere
appearances. The other kind of monism-spiritual monism, the kind
one finds in Advaita-can, in principle, explain how bodily processes
bring about mental states, for both bodily processes and mental states
on this account are products of prakrti, but the Advaita still has to tell us
how a mental state appears to be a state of consciousness and for this
the Vedantin again appeals to the concepts of aVidya and the witness-
consciousness.
In the preceding paragraphs, I have examined the relative merits
and demerits of the rival monistic and dualistic theories. Monism has
greater theoretical appeal because of its simplicity, and if, as argued
before, spiritualistic monism of Advaita Vedanta is better off than the
materialistic monism, the Advaita Vedanta as a philosophical system is
even stronger: What materialism claims on its behalf is its seeming
closeness to the natural sciences. But the materialists' claim that the
natural sciences themselves are materialistic is highly questionable.
Materialism is one familiar interpretation of the natural sciences. The
other interpretation, more in consonance with Advaita, is possible and
also available. But that is a task I do not plan to undertake here.
VI
Discussing the following questions may bring out further aspects of the
Advaita theory of consciousness: What is meant by consciousness as
self-luminous (svayarrtprakasa)? Does it have a form (akara)? Is it of an
object (sav4aya) or without an object (nirv4aya)? Why does the self-
shining and the differenceless consciousness appear to be many and
infected with differences?
We have already seen that the Advaitins agree with the Buddhist
position that consciousness is svayarrtprakasa (self-shining).39 The
Buddhist theory makes each specific cognitive event self-shining; in other
words, the event shows However, on the Advaita account, these
determinate or specific cognitions, for example, the visual perception of
a table, are not in themselves self-manifesting. They hold that each such
cognitive occurrence or vrtti is directly presented to the witness-
consciousness without requiring the mediation of another vrtti. Thus, to
say that a cognition is self-manifesting, amounts to saying that a cognition
is that is, it is apprehended by the witness-
consciousness alone, which is self-manifesting and does not require
another witness-consciousness to manifest it. It is important to remember
that the Buddhists do not have a concept of witness-consciousness; there
is no witness of the cognitive events of consciousness. Each such event
is literally self-aware, i.e., aware of itself.
The major difference between the Buddhist and the Advaita Vedanta
understanding of consciousness lies in their answers to the following
questions: Does consciousness have an akara? Or, is it nirakara? As
stated earlier, on the Buddhist account, consciousness is saiara, it
possesses a form. The Advaitins, however, severely criticize this theory
and argue that consciousness has no form, no content; its only function,
like that of light; is to show the object on which it is focused. In lhis
regard, the Advaitins side with the Nyaya and MImarpsa philosophers.
The Advaitins argue that, that which manifests everything cannot have
the form of any particular thing; manifestation is its only function.
However, it is important to note in this context that in a very peculiar
way the Advaitins do accommodate the sa.kara theory within their
scheme, because on their account, though consciousness has no form,
the vrttis do assume the form of the object. Thus, the vrtti of the Advaitin
is the vijnana of the Buddhists except that they make each vrtti
svasaf!1vedana, whereas the vrtti in itself is not self-luminous on the
Advaita account.
The final question that concerns theories of consciousness in Indian
philosophy is whether consciousness is intrinsically intentional or
The Advaita view on this matter is clear and sharply opposed
to the Nyaya-Vaise;;ika and Mlmarpsa views. It regards consciousness as
non-intentional; the Advaitins argue that consciousness only appears to
be intentional on account of the reflection of the sakara vrtti in it or vice
versa. The vrtti, however, has the intentional structure of the Buddhist
vijnana inasmuch as it has a content, which is the form of the object. So
it would seem that the Advaita theory of consciousness has been able to
accommodate the two competing theories by assigning to them two
different levels of discourse. Pure consciousness or suddhacaitanya has
no intentionality. The vrttis have an intentional structure, which they
owe to the causal influence of the object and the inner sense. The
intentional structure and the causal story coalesce.
Additionally, the Advaita Vedanta theory of consciousness must
confront the following major difficulty: granting that consciousness is
one, self-shining and differenceless, why does it appear to be many and
infected with differences? The simple Advaita Vedanta answer, as is well
known, is that it is due to ignorance. But this answer, while it mayor
may not be finally satisfactory, becomes a source of more puzzles than it
solves. The first question, which is almost unavoidable, is what is the
relation between the self-revealing consciousness and ignorance?
The Advaita response to this question may be developed in several
steps. First, like every other thing, ignorance is an object of consciousness
in the sense that it is manifested by the witness-consciousness as
expressed in the judgement 'I am ignorant'. Second, consciousness does
not remove ignorance, since consciousness manifests it. It is not opposed
to ignorance, for if it were, there could be no ccnsciousness of ignorance.
What opposes ignorance and so destroys it, as we have seen, is
knowledge in the sense of a true cognition (prama) of the nature of the
thing. From all this it follows that on the Advaita view the ultimate locus
of ignorance is consciousness, its being depends on consciousness;
without consciousness, as just stated, ignorance would not be manifested,
and so would be reduced to nothing. At the same time, the Advaita points
out consciousness is also the object of ignorance. Ignorance conceals an
object (that is to say, the object of which I am ignorant) only by concealing
the consciousness which would have manifested that object. Since objects
are not self-manifesting, it would be utterly futile to conceal them. It is
only by concealing the source of its manifestation that the object can be
shut out from the view. In the Advaita technical language, what is
concealed is not the pitcher, but the consciousness as limited by the
pitcher (ghatavacchinacaitanya). So we arrive at a very paradoxical
situation with regard to the relation between consciousness and
ignorance. Consciousness is both the locus and the object of ignorance.
Being the locus, consciousness supports the very being of ignorance.
Trying to conceal that very support, ignorance does not and cannot
succeed in the (concealing) project. For if consciousness were wholly
concealed by ignorance, nothing could be manifested, everything would
be in the dark, and there would be no awareness of ignorance itself.
Thus, while ignorance seeks to conceal consciousness, consciousness
manifests that ignorance in that very act of concealing it, analogously to
the manner in which Rahu, the demon, is known, manifested, seen, not
per se, but only in the act of swallowing up the moon. For the Advaita
Vedanta there is no incompati-bility between consciousness being the
foundation of everything and ignorance concealing its nature and making
it appear to be what it is not.
I hope it is obvious to my readers by now that the Advaita account is
very different from the Buddhist account. We have already seen that the
Buddhists in their theory fuse nature and consciousness together. The
Advaitins, on the other hand, argue that the nature or prakrti consisting
of the three gU1'}as is a product of aVidya or ignorance. While resting on,
that is to say, being manifested by consciousness, nature per se is other
than consciousness. In the Advaita scheme of things, there is no visual
consciousness, no tactual consciousness as such. It only appears to be
visual or tactual, when it is limited by the inner sense and the sense
organs. Consciousness pervades all things but is not touched by any of
them. If the Advaita metaphysics is true, then there is consciousness in
stones, mountains, rivers, plants, trees, and animals and humans without
undergoing any corresponding transformation. So the metaphysics is
122
Cit: Consciousness
not pan-psychism, as the Buddhist position seems to be, and the Jaina
position seems more explicitly to be. This externality of the relation
between consciousness and nature precisely undercuts the ability of
Advaita theory to generate a philosophy of science. It leaves science to
nature for whose internal structure consciousness has nothing to
contribute. What it contributes is the abstract possibility of manifestation.
There are philosophers of science today who look forward to Vedanta
as providing a good philosophy of physics so that consciousness instead
of being the product of matter would be regarded as the original stuff of
which all things are made. But how can it be so, if consciousness is
reduced to a mere principle of manifestation and all creative energy is
handed over to avidya? Is it possible that consciousness has two essential
natures: manifestation (prakasa) and creative energy (Sakti)? But that
would mean that the aVidya would be blended with the founding
consciousness more intimately than the Advaita scheme would allow.
Can it (avidya) be the creative aspect of consciousness?
In modern times, we find this form of Advaita in the thought of SrI
Aurobindo. But in this respect Aurobindo was preceded by KashmIr
Saivism, especially of the Abhinavagupta variety. The essence of his
theory is that consciousness is not only cit but also cit-sakti, this cit-sakti
exercises its creative function through time such that kala is an aspect of
cit-sakti. One finds there the concept of descent of consciousness through
a series of manifestations, many different levels of both cit and time.
I hope it is obvious to my readers by now that as compared with the
and Mlmarpsa, whose theories I have characterized as
an objectivist theory and the Yogacara Buddhist's subjective-objective
theory, the Advaita Vedanta theory becomes truly transcendental
subjectivism. Citis not a worldly entity but constitutes the basis and the
conditions of the possibility of all mundane experience, and in that sense
is transcendental. If all experience requires the split between the subject
and the object, the dualism between consciousness and the world, the
knower and the known, then a pure, differenceless consciousness would
seem to transcend experience, so that consciousness in its purity would
seem to be, besides being transcendental, also transcendent. But this
last characterization is to be understood with a certain limitation.
Consciousness is not an entity, like God, the assumed creator of the
world, inhabiting some remote space transcending the world. But strictly
speaking, consciousness is immanent in all experience. The best I can
do to express this point is by recalling a remark ascribed to the
Advaitins, that whenever and wherever something exists (asti), something
Subjectivist- Transcendental Tbeory oj Advaita Vedanta 123
appears (bhati) and something pleases (roeati) , those three functions
precisely are, in their unity, pure consciousness, atman or the brahman.
What we need is to abstract the three aspects from their objective contents,
in other words, from that which is said to exist, to appear, and to please
until we are left with the mere functions of existing, appearing, and
pleasing, i.e., consciousness. But again it would be a mistake to say that
consciousness has three aspects, because that would amount to
introducing into the consciousness a structure of differences which
Advaita consistently excludes from consciousness. So the words 'sat',
, cit', and' ananda' must not be construed in Advaita to designate different
aspects or properties of one and the same thing but that these three
words by a semantic process of dropping their primary meanings are to
be understood as exercising a secondary meaning function, i.e., l a ~ a 1 J a
to exclude what is non-existent, what is actt, what is pain and suffering
from the nature of pure consciousness. So although there are three
different functions of exclusion, of the words' sat', 'cit', and' ananda',
the primary designatum is suddhacaitanya; the cit simply is.
VII
Why is it held by the Advaitins that consciousness, in its own nature,
is blissful? They describe consciousness in such language as
anandasvarupa, anandaghana, etc. In order to understand this
conception of consciousness, we have to go through several steps. The
thesis is, no doubt, unique and strange. Though such experiences as
uninterrupted and non-objectifiable bliss are intelligible, one still has to
understand why one should locate such experiences in the very nature
of consciousness, instead of saying that in these cases one is conscious
of bliss.
Let us first distinguish between pleasure (sukha) , happiness, and
bliss (ananda). Pleasure, which is always contrasted with pain, is marked
by a sensuous, in the language of phenomenology, 'hyletic' content; it
is produced by causes and is never permanent or everlasting. It arises
and perishes, and is, therefore, also relative to the context. Clearly,
pleasure is an object of consciousness, so also is pain. Therefore, neither
pleasure nor. pain could belong to the nature of consciousness .. Even if
pleasure is sensuous and does not belong to cit; one could argue that cit
from an empirical perspective has some partiality, to state it
metaphorically, towards pleasure, and against pain. It is not incorrect to
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Cit: Consciousness
say that consciousness does not wish pain upon itself. It rejects pain,
and in an attempt to get rid of it, treats it as an 'intrusive other'. The
phenomenologists argue that pain is characterized by what they call
'alterity' (a stranger, an unwarranted other), and consciousness cannot
. make sense of it. Pleasure, on the other hand, is accepted or welcomed;
one does not wish it to cease; rather, at the moment of pleasure, one
wishes it to be permanent. But pleasure also soon shows itself to be an
other. If prolonged, without internal variation, it becomes bOring, and
consciousness rejects it. That alone could belong to the nature of
consciousness, which could never be rejected, with which consciousness
would be perpetually satisfied without ever being bored. So a continuous
uninterrupted consciousness of pleasure not only is inconceivable;
perhaps it is logically impossible. Given that pleasure is always pleasure
of or in something-this something is a determinate something-a food,
a drink, which removes a felt want such as hunger or thirst. So even if
one's life is a life of pleasure, it must be a life of pleasures, each succeeded
by another, none everlasting. But as Gautama Buddha said, a lesser
pleasure, as contrasted with a greater pleasure that might have been is
painful; a pleasure, when it is no more without being boring, is painful,
so that it would seem that pain lurks in the interstices of pleasure. The
two go together; if one of them is rejected at the beginning, the other
eventually also becomes, if not a stranger, still a boring companion.
So much for pleasure. Is happiness intrinsic to consciousness? How
is happiness to be distinguished from pleasure? Pleasure is an intentional
state and is always associated with an object and a felt want; happiness
seems to be without a specific object, such as food or drink, that is, as
not filling a specific want. Perhaps, more appropriately, it may qe
regarded as a second-order state, which under certain conditions
supervenes upon the first-order pleasures and pains. It would be wrong
to suppose that a happy man only has pleasures and no pains. Happiness
must be a state, not of uninterrupted pleasure, nor of total absence of
pain (both of which are impossible), but a state of enduring satisfaction
with the way things are, without any desire to change them radically
(such that the first-level pleasures and pains are accepted and interpreted
as contributing to a larger harmony of the whole of life). A state of
unhappiness is one in which this harmony is broken down, disturbed,
and so requires to .be readjusted. Is happiness in this sense intrinsic to .
consciousness?
Again, one might argue that it is not. The"idea of happiness entails
that a person has a certain conception of her life in relation to others, a
view of where she is going (purpose), and how things fit into that scheme
of things. It (happiness) has no absolute criterion. What makes a
. Confucian or a Taoist happy is different from what would make a devout
Christian or a Vedantin happy. What is needed is a conception of one's
self in relation to others and the world, so that one can make one's first-
order pleasures and pains fit in. But this total conception of a harmonious
order would differ from culture to culture. It cannot, therefore, belong to
the nature of consciousness, that is, to consciousness in itself.
The Advaita Vedantins, however, claim that left to itself, conscious-
ness is characterized by cmanda or bliss. Among Indian schools Advaita
Vedanta alone holds such a view. The view seems to be intelligible
because one construes cmanda as an uninterrupted state of pleasure
(which I have argued is impossible, anavacchinnasukhapravaha).
People also take it to be intelligible because they construe it as a state of
happiness. However, the concept of happiness, as we just saw, applies
only to concrete persons in their relationship to others and the world.
What then is the meaning of ctnanda?
In order to make some progress in answering the above question,
let me develop some arguments one of which is explicitly stated in the
Advaita literature but others are implicitly contained. The explicit
argument is based upon a certain reading of the distinction between the
four states of the self, the waking, the dreaming, the dreamless sleep,
and the tufiya.
40
The argument rests on the interpretation of dreamless
sleep. Upon waking up from the dreamless sleep, one recalls, on the
one hand, that one slept well and, on the other, that one did not know
anything. These two together imply that the state of well-being, which
one recalls, is independent of any objective knowledge. It is not pleasure
in anything in particular. During this state, we are told, consciousness
rests alone in and by itself, and so if it has an experience of well-being
that only shows that this well-being is intrinsic to consciousness. This
argument of course has another step, which I have omitted so far, namely,
that these two judgements are memory judgements, not experiences. '
Those who reject the Advaita theory of consciousness construe these
judgements as inferences, although the exact formulations of these
inferences are very difficult to state.
Leaving the dreamless sleep argument aside for the present purpose,
let me develop one of the implicit arguments. The argument would be
something like this: consciousness in our ordinary worldly experience is
always attached to or directed towards some object or the other, it is also
individuated by being located in some body or the other. Pleasure and
pain, as well as happiness or unhappiness, pertain to this individualized
consciousness and are due to this objective intentionality. With regard
to objects, there are three interrelated intentionalities: knowledge, desire,
and action. Knowledge of a thing gives rise to the desire to possess it,
and the desire to possess it gives rise to action towards that goal. Each
one of these, however, is subject to disappointment. Knowledge may
fail to attain the truth; desire may either be frustrated, or even if fulfilled
may bring new desires, and eventually pain. Action likewise may fail to
reach its object for various obvious reasons. So it would seem that the
possibilities of frustrations and disappointments are intrinsic to the
intentionalities of empirical or worldly consciousness. Pleasure and pain
always seem to go together. Happiness arises from harmoniously
coordinating one's beliefs, desires, and actions but nothing can assure
that such harmony will not be interrupted. The only prospect of escaping
from such dismal possibilities is to withdraw from all objective
intentionalities, so that consciousness is made to rest in and by itself. If
that is possible, in that state there would be a state of well-being with no
possibility of disappointment or frustration. Why not call it a state of bliss?
But this withdrawal from objective intentionality cannot be a simple
one-step accomplishment. One can imagine a series of steps through
which one progressively withdraws from all externality, into the interiority
of one's being, the end point of the process being consciousness fully
coinciding with itself, cmanda. The account of the different
which like onion skin have to be peeled off succeSSively until
one reaches the innermost core of cmanda, suggests this process. It is
not, however, clear why or in what sense the goal, should one reach it,
be a state of bliss. There are several other possibilities that we have to
consider. In the first place, the fully self-coincident consciousness may
be one of total indifference (udasina). Or, it may be one of complete
freedom. Or, it may be a state of enjoyment in which the self freely gives'
itself to the other. Let us consider these three possibilities.
A consciousness that is in a state of indifference is still indifferent
towards the world and the others. It is like the phenomenologist's
neutralization of the mundane attitudes. It leaves the world and the others
where they 'were, does not alter their status, but withdraws from them
into its own interiority as if out of disgust, possibility of frustration, and
even out of a fear of contamination. Thus it seems that indifferent
consciousness is still attached' to the world, only negatively.
The second possibility, namely, that consciousness becomes free
when it returns to be in and by itself, is of course a part of the Advaitic
wisdom. One way of understanding this could be the following.
Intentionality in general is consciousness defining itself in terms of
something in the world. It is either a visual consciousness or a tactual
consciousness, a consciousness of seeing, or of hearing, or of thinking.
In this way, intentional consciousness is attached to the world and
becomes a worldly phenomenon. But at the same time, this consciousness
also has an aspect in which it stands apart from that worldly involvement
and can contemplate the latter as a possible object. My consciousness is
not only a visual perception of the things out there, but it is also an
awareness of so perceiving of that perception. ~ that case every
consciousness is two-tiered: there is the intentional consciousness and
there is the non-intentional awareness. The former may metaphorically
be described as a state ofbonciage, the latter as freedom. But this freedom,
within the context of the mundane life, is always experienced as a
dimension of that bondage. In other words, the awareness, which
accompanies intentionality, is like a halo radiating from intentionality. It
is this which prevents consciousness from becoming a completely
objective phenomenon. So, we can perhaps say that every intentional
involvement with the world is also at the same time a non-intentional
standing apart from it. Can this standing apart signify the promise and
the possibility of that freedom which would be a state of ananda, when
all intentional involvement in the world is snapped? But, here again, we
may raise the follOWing sceptical question. What promises us, according
to the above account, the possibility of freedom is consciousness's
standing apart from intentional involvement at the same time when it is .
so involved. Thus it would seem that this freedom is always a freedom
from something, which at the same time threatens to overpower it. If
that is so, this freedom cannot cease to be a freedom from something,
and if it is destined to be a freedom from something, it is destined to be
an accompaniment of intentionality. In that case, the conception of
freedom that I arrive at is not to be construed as freedom from
intentionality, but if is a freedom which accompanies intentionality and
gets its content from the intentionality which it perpetually transcends;
however it still falls short of what the Advaitins promise. One way of
avoiding this conclusion is to follow the path laid down by K.C.
Bhattacharyya in The Subject as Freedom. Bhattacharyya argues that
intentionality itself is not involvement with the world but the dissociation
or standing apart from it. According to my account given above, the
dissociation or standing apart accompanies intentionality as if it were a
halo subtended by intentionality. According to K.C. Bhattacharyya's own
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Cit: Consciousness
account, intentionality itself is dissociation from its object. 41 I would prefer,
instead of this, an account according to which both-a movement towards
the object and a movement away from it towards' consciousness-are
parallel movements accompanying each other:
Is there any better prospect for the third possibility where
consciousness is related to an object in such a way that in that object it
finds itself and reciprocally that object while remaining an other loses its
otherness to consciousness. The reciprocal finding of oneself in the other
and the other in oneself-the persistence of the otherness in the midst
of the experience of self-identity, the overflowing of consciousness from
the bounds of oneself into the other, and from the other into oneself-
seems to be a description of the experience of lOVing, of the abolition of
boundaries that divide two consciousnesses, in which the two bodies,
while still attaching to the consciousnesses, cease to be limiting adjuncts
and function as a means of opening out to each other, so that
consciousness seems to have achieved victory over mundane
intentionality and becomes a transcendental power. Sexual relation
illustrates this; however, the concept of sexuality is too restricted to fully
articulate it. Could this experience hold the promise of yielding a better
insight into what it might mean by saying consciousness is cmanda?
In order to be able to yield that insight the loving relation must not
be a mere state of pleasure which it always runs the risk of becoming; it
must not be a mere state of happiness which is so much culturally
dependent; it must be an ontological state, that is, a state of being where
difference is preselVed by transcending into the unity of existence. Again,
thjs state of being is always under the threat of mundanity, of becoming
a state of the body, and an event in the world, in which case the indifferent
consciousness would still mock at it as it would everything worldly. The
crucial question is whether sexual union can be raised from the mundane
to a transcendental power, as in the mythological accounts of Kr{l!).a's
erotic play with Radha.
This account of consciousness as cmanda cannot be satisfactory for
one primary reason that love, espeCially construed as sexual experience
between the lover and the beloved, is subject to time and change; it
does not last forever. The two consciousnesses are mortal, and even if a
lifetime is spent in the loving consciousness, it does not endure; it can
be preselVed only in the hope of life hereafter. In other words, death
threatens this loving consciousness.
Consciousness can be either cognitive or affective or volitional. For
most Indian philosophers, consciousness is eognitive. It manifests, shows,
makes known, and reveals, excepting in the a i ~ 1 a v a schools of bhakti,
consciousness is not construed as affective. Enjoyment and suffering, as
we have seen earlier in this chapter, are relegated to the status of
accidental and transitory fortunes. Is there any mode of consciousness
which is intrinsically one of enjoyment? For the philosophers of bhakti,
who do not regard the world and the selves as appearances,
consciousness is intrinsically related to others in modes of loving and
attachment, as the consciousness of the beloved to the lover,
consciousness of a friend to a friend, of a servant to the master, of a child
to the father or mother, and so on. These and other rasas (feeling
essences) are intrinsic to consciousness according to the classical rasa
theory; these rasas are eight in number. Abhinavagupta added one
additional to the list, the santarasa. The idea seems to be that there is a
state in the development of one's emotional life when these various
rasas enter into a state of peace. Thus in the highest, deepest, and most
enduring aesthetic experience-in watching a drama or enjoying a work
of art or in reflecting on a loving experience-consciousness attains this
state of peace where contrary and contradictory first-level emotions are
resolved resulting in the establishment of a state of harmony between
the enjoying consciousness and its other, whatever that other may be. It
is, therefore, possible to hold that the highest and the deepest level of
consciousness is achieved in aesthetic experience and that is a state of
ananda. It is more common to hold, however, that the highest and the
deepest level of consciousness is achieved in mystic experience or tunya.
But not all of us know what is a mystic experience. One feature of mystic
experience, whatever else it might be, is that the subject--object dualism
is transcended in it. But this transcendence may be accomplished in
three different ways: an affective, a volitional, and a cognitive way. The
first is the aesthetic consciousness in which the object of art evokes from
the spectator or the enjoyer an emotion, which is also the essence of the
artwork, such that the same rasa is in the mind and in the object, the two
becoming identical. Thus Abhinavagupta could say that aesthetic
I
experience is an equivalent of the experience of the brahman. The second
path is volitional; it arises out of the moral will seeking to embody the
moral ideal within itself. When that ideal is reached the subject and the
object become one. The third path is that of knowledge. Upon the
attainment of the knowledge of the truth, consciousness finds the truth
within itself, and not simply as an external object. The late K.C.
Bhattacharyya used to say that there are three alternative paths to the
absolute. In fact, his own position was even stronger, for he held that
these are three alternative absolutes, truth, beauty, goodness. In each of
these paths, finite consciousness reaches its goal and its complete
satisfaction. The concept of imanda is not simply one of intense positive
feeling, but whatever else it may be; it is a state of restfulness, of peace
with itself upon reaching it; nothing else remains to be desired. To say
that consciousness is imanda is to say that when this value is realized, it
is not realized as something outside of consciousness (for example, a
worldly good) but as the consciousness itself. A consciousness of value
and the value of consciousness coincide.
Notes
1. In the Advaitin tradition, immediately following Sarp.kara, we find three
different interpretations:
(a) The first interpretation originated with Suresvara (800 CE) and his
pupil Sarvajiiatma Muni (900 CE). Suresvara was one of the direct disciples of
Sarpkara and his primary works are Naiijkarmyasiddhi,
Vartika, and Brhadarar:zyakopani$ad Bha$ya-Vartika. Sarvajiiatma was the
author of Salpk$epa-sar'iraka.
(b) The second interpretation originated in the writings of Padmapada
(S20 CE), Sarp.kara's closest disciple. He wrote Pancapadika (PP), an
elaboration of Sarp.kara's commentary on the first four aphorisms of the
Brahmasutras. Prakasatman (1200 CE) wrote a commentary on PP entitled
Pancapadikavivarar:zalp (PPV), which is the pillar of the Vivaral).a school and
the school is named after it.
(c) BhamatI, the third school of interpretation, is associated with
Jl,iJal).Qanamisra (SOO CE) and Vacaspatimisra (S40 CE). Vacaspati's commentary
on Sarpkara's Brahmasutras, from which this school receives its name, is known
as Bhamatl (the lustrous).
2. CU, VI.S, 10.
3. See CU, 6.2.1 (the brahman as sat); Sveta 1.3, 5.S (the brahman as cit);
and Kena 4.6 and TU, 2.7, 3.6 (the brahman as ananda).
4. TU, 2.1.1.
5. P. F. Strawson, Individuals: Essays in Descriptive Metaphysics (London:
Methuen 1959), Chapter 3.
6. Husser! calls the Cartesian pure ego 'a little tag-end of the world'.
Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology,
'Second Meditation' (trans.) Dorian Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973),
p.24.
7. Franz Brentano, Psychology From an Empiricist Standpoint(trans.) Antos
C. Rancurello, D.B. Terrell, and Linda McAlister (New York: Humanities Press,
1973), pp. 35, 91-2.
In the context of explaining Brentano's theory of intentionality, ].N.
Mohanty notes: 'Brentano's final position then comes to this: every mental act
is conscious (infact, but not on logical or:i priori grounds). Every mental act
has a twofold object, a primary object and a secondary object. The secondary
object is nothing other than the act itself. But the act is aware of itself in three
different ways: it represents itself, it knows itself through inner perception, and
it feels itself as pleasurable or painful.' The Concept of Intentionality (St Louis:
Warren and Green, 1972), p. 19.
8. Mutual negation is the absence of one thing from another; when one
thing is different from another, they mutually exclude each other. A chair, for
example, is not a table. Consciousness has no other form on the Advaita account.
9. R.F. Hoernle, Matter, Life, Mind: Five Lectures on Contemporary
Tendencies of Thougbt (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1923).
10. The Nyaya school of Indian philosophy takes the mind to be an
instrument of perception and construes it as the eleventh' indriya' (sense organ).
However, most Advaitins do not recognize it as an indriya. The Vivara1J.a and
the BhamatI traditions disagree regarding the status of mind as a sense organ.
Whereas the Vivara1J.a tradition does not take mind to be a sense organ, the
BhimatI tradition does. The function of mind is to go out to grasp the object
and make it manifest. In other words, the mind is not a passive instrument that
Simply records the impressions; it is active in perceiving an object.
In this context, readers must not lose Sight of the fact that the Advaitin
conception of 'indriya' or sense organ is quite different from the generally
accepted notion of a sense organ. The term 'indriya' does not refer to the outer
organs of the eyes, ears, nose, etc., located in the physical body, rather, their
subtle counterparts constitutive of the subtle body; they are composed of the
same type of subtle substance as the inner sense. Sense organs thus can expand
and contract as freely as the mind.
11. It is important to note here that although Satpkara disci.lsses the inner
sense (antaqkara'YJa) at various places in his writings, he never makes his own
position on this important concept very clear. At one place, Sarpkara uses the
expression 'antaqkara'YJadvaya' (twofold inner senses) which might lead .
readers to believe that Sarpkara recognizes two inner senses rather than one,
although he never clarifies what those two might be (147adesa 1.3.116). At another
place, Saqlkara descripes atman as the witness of all antaqkara'YJas
which suggests that there are more than two
antaqkara'YJas (Upadesa, 1.18.176). Mayeda suggests that 'each of the
modifications of the antaqkara'YJa such as manas, vijfiana, and citta is called
antaqkara'YJa: these antaqkara'YJas may be represented by the two words buddbi
and manas' (ibid). Deussen argues that for Sarpkara antaqkara'YJa and manas
are 'completely interchangeable'. P. Deussen, The System oftbe Vedanta (New
York: Dover Publications, 1973), p. 330.
It is indeed true that Saqlkara at times uses buddbi and manas
interchangeably. However it is very unlikely that for Sarpkara, as Deussen argues,
the two are 'completely interchangeable'. SaqIkara, in his commentary on Karha,
m.10, takes buddbi to be superior to the manas, and argues that the buddbi is
'more subtle' (para sukshmatara) than the manas. He makes the same point in
his commentary on the BbagavadgUa: 'similarly, higher is buddbi which is
determination or resolution' (m.42) , .
12. The most systematic development of the concept of 'gurJa' ('quality',
'constituent', 'strand ') is found in the SaIllkhya school of Indian philosophy. It
recognizes three gUrJas: sattva, rajas, and tamas. All objects, they (SaIllkhya)
argue, consist of these three gUrJas in different proportions, which account for
the variety that we see in this wotld. Of these three, the mind, being constituted
of the finest essence of the three, that is, the sattva, has the quality to .expand
and contract and assume the form of the object of knowledge, irrespective of
whether it is large or small, fine or gross.
13. Vedanta Paribbii$a (VP) states:
sa ca vrttiS caturvidba-sarrzSayaq niScayaq, garvaq, smarar.zam iti.
evarp, sati vrttibhedena ekamapi antaqkarar.zarp, mana iti buddhir
iti abarp,kara iti cittarp, iti cakhyayate.
TaduktaT(b-
mana buddbir abarp,karaS cittarp, kararJarp, antararp,
SarrzSayo niScaya garvaq smararJarp, vi$aya ime.
VP in the text quoted above makes a functional differentiation within the inner
sense, which, although one, because of its different aspects or functions, comes
to be known by different appellations such as mind (manas), intellect (buddbz),
the ego sense (abarp,kara), and recollection (citta). When the inner sense has
for its limiting adjunct the mental mode in the form of doubt, it is called mind;
when it has for its limiting adjunct a mental mode in the form of certitude, it is
termed 'intellect'; when the mental mode takes the form of egoity, it is called '1-
ness'; and when it has a mental mode in the form of memory, it is termed
'recollection'. See this author's Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta (Lewisburg, PA:
Bucknell University Press, 1992), 5.32, pp. 225-6.
14. This, however, is not literally true, for the only thing, on the Advaita
view, which can manifest anything is consciousness. So if something non-
conscious (such as vrttt) is said to manifest consciousness, what is meant is that
it destroys the concealing factor, letting consciousness show itself.
15. The Advaitins hold that in 'I slept soundly and I did not know anything',
'the not-knowing of anything' is only recollected upon waking up. The
recollection would not be possible without the initial experience of it during
the state of sleep itself. Accordingly, for the Advaitins, the not-knowing is a
case of memory; it is not and cannot be an instance of inference. The Naiyayikas,
on the other hand, take the above instance to be a case of inference. It is indeed
true that the self exists in deep sleep, but it does not know anything during this
state. One becomes aware of the absence of kn@wledge with the help of
reasoning assuming the following form: the self in deep sleep is characterized
by the absence of knowledge because of the non-availability of all the conditions
of knowledge (the self, the conjunction of the self with the mind, and the
conjunction of the mind with the body). Given that all these means are not
available during the state of deep sleep, the subsequent memory of it is
impossible. So they conclude that the seeming recollection of not-knowing
anything is a case of inference.
The Vivaral)a tradition holds that in the state of deep sleep, there is the
ignorance, the pleasure (sukba), and the witness-consciousness each with its
own mental mode, giving rise to the remembrance (paramarsa) under
consideration. Thus, the judgement 'I knew nothing and I slept happily', is an
instance of recollection resulting from the residual impression of the
indeterminate experience during deep sleep, tatasca sU$uptau anubbuta
anandaq atma bbavasvarupajnana'Y(l ca trayam apyuttbitena parama.rSyate
'sukbam abam asvapsa'Y(l', na kincid avedi$am 'iti nanu etat traya'Y(l
sU$uptau nantaqkarar.zavrttibbir anubb uyate, tasa'Y(l tatrabbavat
aVidyaivoktatrayagrabakavrttitrayakarer.za sU$uptau vivartate. VPS, p. 73.
16. See Note 2 of Chapter Three for the definition of samavaya.
17. Sarpkara rejects the relation of samavaya. He argues that if the relation
of samavaya is needed to unite two different objects, samavaya itself, being
different from both of them, would need another samavaya, and so on ad
infinitum. In his historic refutation of the theory of
asatkaryavada, Sarpkara notes: 'Even in the assumption of a Samavayarelation
(invariable concomitance) if it is understood that there is a relation as between
the Samavaya, on the one hand, and the two entities between which such
Samavaya exists ... , on the other, then such another Samavaya relation of that,
and then still such another Samavaya relation of that, ad infinitum, will have to
be imagined, and hence the predicament of a regressus ad infinitum would
result .. .' Sarp.kara's commentary on the Brabmasutra, Y.M. Apte (trans.)
Brabma-Sutra-Sbankara-Bbasbya (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1960), 2.1.18,
p.317.
The point that Sarpkara is trying to make is as follows:
theory of asatkaryavadaleads to infinite regress. To explain the relation between
two distinct and independent realities-the cause and the effect-requires that
we posit a third entity, that is, the relation of invariable concomitance between
them. This third entity (which must be distinct from the two terms that it relates),
then, in tum, requires a fourth relating entity to relate the third entity with each
of the first two terms, and so on ad infinitum.
18. VP defines prama as a cognition that has for its content an entity that is
not already known and is not sublated (anadbigatabadbitartbavi$ayak-
ajnanatvam). Pramar.za, on the other hand, is the instrument that leads to prama.
See Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta, 1.8, pp. 113-21.
19. See Citsukha, Tattvapradipika, ed. Yoglndrananda, with Nayana-
prasadin7 of (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1915), pp. 3-11.
Hereafter the book will be cited as TP.
Citsukha, an Advaitin of post -Sarpkara era, in the above work considers
at least eleven definitions of self-luminosity. One of the definitions he rejects is
that consciousness is itself its own manifestation (svasya svayam eva prakasa
itiva). In this context, the Advaitins reject theories that are different from their
own. For example, they reject the Priibhakara view that consciousness is its
own object, that consciousness indeed is subject as well as object rolled into
one. The Priibhakara school holds that the conditions that lead to the origination
of a cognition are also the conditions that lead to its manifestation. In a cognition
of the fonn 'I know the table', the cognition manifests itself, the object, and the
self, i.e., the substratum of that cognition. The Advaitins reject this and other
theories on the ground that consciousness is unobjectifiable and, therefore,
cannot be known objectively. Although not knowable objectively, it is not
unknown. It is unconditionally immediate. The uniquely defining character of
knowledge is that it has the capacity of immediate presentation without being
an object of knowledge. They argue that consciousness alone is self-luminous
and that all objects are manifested by consciousness. Hence the conclusion:
consciousness and the objects are ontologically different.
Citsukha advances the following argument in favour of self-lUminosity
of consciousness: 'Consciousness is self-luminous, because it is of the nature of
experience. A pitcher, for example, is not self-luminous' (anubhftti};
svayarrzprakasa anubhutitvat yan naivarrz tannaivam yatha ghata};). Ibid.,
sec. 2.4, 21. Sruti also testifies to the self-luminous character of the atman:
cidrftpatvad akarmatvat svayarrzjyotir iti srute};
atmana}; svaprakasatvarrz ko nivarayiturrz k!jama};. Ibid., 1.3,38.
20. Sarpkara defines superimposition as the 'apparent presentation (to
consciousness), like remembrance, of something previously experienced in
something else'. See' Adhyasabhi4Ya' of his commentary on the Brahmasutra.
21. See S. S. Suryanaciyana Sastri's translation of Vedanta Paribhi4a by
Dhannaraja AdhvarIndra (Adyar: The Adyar Library, 1942), Chapter 1.
22. In the opening section of his commentary on the Kena Upani$ad,
Sarpkara makes a distinction between pure consciousness, the ground of all
other forms of knowledge, and the empirical cognition. The first, being
transcendental, pure, and foundational, is the very essence of selfhood. The
second, on the other hand, is subject to mutations and change, given that it
appears in relation to particular objects.
23. Sarpkara provides at least five different, though not mutually exclusive,
characterizations of sak!jin:
1. Sak!jin as the witness of the intellect;
2. Sak!jin as the non-dual propertyless Brahman;
3. Sak!jin as identical to atman;
4. Sak!jin as the witness of all three states; ,and
5. Sak!jin as the same as isvara .
Subjectivist-Transcendental Tbeory of Ad va ita Vedanta 135
For a discussion of these senses, see The Disinterested Witness,
.pp.36-9.
24. Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta, p. 167.
25. The expression 'conditioned by' and other similar expressions such as
'defined by' and 'limited by' used in this chapter may be understood in the
sense in which one may speak of 'space' as defined by the four walls of a
room. These are only ascriptions, limiting adjuncts, and not literal delimitations.
26. See Dharmariija's VP, the chapter on perception.
27. Here we find a very Aristotelian picture indeed. Compare this to the
account given by Aristode in De Anima, where he argues that in sense perception
we only receive the form and not the matter of the object, because a sense 'has
the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter.
This must be conceived of as taking place in the way in which a piece of wax
takes on the impress of a signet ring without the iron or gold; we say that what
produces the impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but its particular metallic
constitution makt;s no difference; in a similar way the sense is affected by what
is colored or flavored or sounding, but it is indifferent what in each case the
substance is ... ' Aristode, De Anima, 424 a 18.
28. Perceiving in Advaita Vediinta, pp. 167-8. Readers may wish to compare
VP example given above with the one given by Srupkara using the metaphors
of copper and its mould, and of light and its object:
yatha tamra'T{Z tannibharrz jayate tatha
rilpadin vyiipnuvac cittarrz tannibharrz d,syate dhruvam. Upade&a, 1.14.3.
'Just as [molten] copper assumes the form of the mould into which it is poured,
similarly is certainly experienced the citta, pervading [the object'sl form-colour,
appears like it.'
Again,
vyanjako va yathaloko vyarigyasyaki'lratamiyat
saroarthavyanjakatvad dh'irarthakara prad,syate.
'Just as light, the illuminator, assumes the forms of whatever is illuminated by
it, so the intellect assumes the forms of objects, in as much as it illuminates all
objects.' Ibid., 1.14.3.
Madhusudana Sarasvati's Advaitasiddhi explains the process as follows:
'the Vritti [vrttt] of the inner organ is like the water of rivers or tanks which
being carried through a channel to an adjoining field encircles the trunk of a
tree requiring water and assumes the form of a water-basin around it and remains
connected with the main source through the channel.' Quoted from Prahlad
Chandrashekhar Devanji (trans.), Siddhantabindu of Madhusudana with the
Commentary of Purushottama. Gaekwad Oriental Series, Vol. 64 (Baroda:
Oriental Institute, 1933), n. 3, p. 235. Hereafter this edition will be cited as SB.
29. Though all the Advaitins agree that the function of vrtti is to manifest
objects, they differ regarding the way in which an object becomes revealed to
the cognizer. These differences are primarily a function of their views of the
knowing self and its relation to the world. In general, there are three different
views as to how the mental mode assumes the form of the object thereby leading
to the perception of it: for the sake of association with consciousness
(ciduparaga); for the sake of the removal of the veil that hides the object
(avaralJ-abhibhava); and for the manifestation of non-difference of the
consciousness conditioned by the object and the consciousness conditioned
by the subject (abheditbhivyakti). SLS, Chapter 1, pp. 51, 187.
VP, however, accepts the third theory of the functioning of a mental
mode. VP maintains that in the perceptual process the consciousness conditioned
by the mind and the consciousness conditioned by the object become non-
different. For a discussion of some of these issues, see Perceiving in Advaita
Vedanta, Chapters 3-4.
30. . .. antaf;karalJ-aparilJ-amaf; sarve'pi .... VPS,
p.223.
31. Madhusiidana Sarasvatl, Advaitasiddhi (Delhi: Parimal Publications,
1988), p. 544. Henceforth this edition will be cited as AS.
32. 'If anything is a priori in the sense of being the non-empirical condition
of the possibility of experience-in a large segment of Indian thought-avidya
or ignorance may be said to be that. It is non-empirical, for ignorance has-in
Buddhism as well as in Vedanta-no origin: it is beginningless (anadi).' ].N.
Mohanty, Reason and Tradition in Indian Tbought(Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1992), p. 270.
33. For a proper understanding of the Advaita system, one must not lose
sight of the distinction between false (mithya) and unreal. False, for the Advaitins,
though not unreal, is other than the real (sadviviktatvam va mithyatvam). The
concept of unreal is self-contradictory, for example, the son of a barren woman.
False, on the other hand, is an object of experience, for example, rope-snake.
Falsity appears and is later negated or contradicted. It is important to keep in
mind that the false and the unreal belong to different ontological levels.
34. Sarva1'(l jnatataya ajnatatya va v4ayaf;. Srirama Sastrl,
PancapadikavivaralJ-am, 1st Van:zaka (Madras: Government Oriental Manuscript
Library, 1958), pp. 83-4. Henceforth this edition will be cited as PPV.
35. MU, 2.2.11; CU, 3.14.1.
36. It is important to keep in mind the Advaitin distinction between primal
nescience (mulavidya) and derivative nesciences (tulavidyas): the first explains
the appearance of the world, the second individual illusions. Primal nescience
is positive, with no beginning in time. Time is an aspect of it and, accordingly
falls within it. Whereas primal nescience is one, derivative nesciences, being
the effects of primal nescience, are many. Derivative nesciences are the
impressions left on the minds in the phenomenal world. They have a beginning
in time and account for individual bondage and freedom. Derivative nescience
is removed by a mental mode of the inner sense. Primal nescience, on the other
hand, is sublated by the knowledge of the brahman on the realization of mok$a.
37. When the Advaitins argue that on account of nescience the non-dual
brahman appears as the world, two important questions arise: (1) To whom
does this nescience belong? (2) What is the object of nescience? Regarding the
locus of nescience, Sarpkara's followers are divided. The VivaraI).a tradition
maintains that pure consciousness is the locus of nescience. In Nai$karmya
Siddhi, Suresvara states that the brahman is both the content and the locus of
ignorance. Ignorance always points to the ignorance of something; it requires a
substratum in which to exist. The self and the not -self are the only two ontological
categories. Therefore, the self must be the locus of aVidya: 'It is absurd to suppose
that that which is logically and causally prior can only exist supported by and
dependent on its own effect. Nor, again, has the not-self any form independent
of and different from ignorance whereby it could serve as its locus and support.'
The Na4karmya Siddhi of Sri Suresvara trans. A.]. Alston (London: Shanti Sadan,
1959), book 3, 111. The Bhamati school, on the other hand, argues that the
individual self is the locus of nescience; it obscures the true nature of the
brahman, thereby making it an object. Vacaspati, Bhamat'i: jivadhikara1J-apya
avidya. 1.4.3. All the followers of Sarpkara admit that the brahman is the object
of nescience.
38. This account of the relation between Sarpkhya pari1J-aJTtvada and the
way it has been appropriated in the Advaita vivartavada seems to be contradicted
by Sarpkara's own critique of the Sarpkhya and theories in his BSBh,
where against these positions he seems to be defending the thesis that the world
is created by an omniscient conscious being. In order to reconcile the bhil$ya,
with the Advaita metaphysical position, one should keep the following points
in mind: (1) though Sarpkara totally rejects atomism, he does not
totally reject the Sarpkhya theory of prakrti; (2) he criticizes the S:1rpkhya claim
that the transformation of prakrti is spontaneous that requires no guidance of a
conscious being; and (3) the theistic idea of creation that he seems to defend in
BSBh as against and Sarpkhya does not represent his final position.
From Sarpkara's perspective, Sarpkhya gives a more plausible account of the
origin of the world than But Sarpkhya's account needs to be
supplemented by a provisional theism. However, this provisional position is
eventually overcome when the Sarpkhya prakrti is construed as avidya,
depending upon the brahman understood as pure consciousness (cinmatra),
not to be mistaken with the god of theism. In the above account of Advaita, I
have only formulate the final Advaita position without going through an
intermediate theistic position which Sarpkara provisionally advances only to be
finally transcended.
39. Paul Hacker holds that self-luminosity 'is a special aspect of the self's
freedom. It implies that the self is known in a manner different from the way in
which objects become known. The self is not an object. It is not necessary to
prove ... that the self exists. On the contrary, the self's luminosity is the
presupposition for any object's being known. One may say in a paradox that
the self is unknowable because it cannot become an object of knowledge, but
it is at the same time better known than any object in as much as no object can
be cognized save in the light of Lhe self.' 'Sarpkara's Conception of Man', in
Kleine Schriften (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1978), p. 128. M. Merleau-Ponty argues
along the same lines, when he writes: 'At the root of all our experiences and all
our reflections, we find, then, a being which immediately recognizes itself,
because it is its knowledge both of itself and of all things, and which knows its
own existence, not by observation and as a given fact, nor by inference from
any idea of itself but through direct contact with that existence. Self-
consciousness is the very being of mind in action. The act whereby I am
conscious of something must itself be apprehended at the very moment at which
it is carried out, otherwise it would collapse.' Phenomenology of Perception,
pp.371-2.
40. MAU, 2-7.
41. For a discussion ofK.C. Bhattacharyya's account of consciousness, see
the next chapter of this work.
6
Transformations of the Advaita
Theory of Consciousness
SRI AUROBINDO
In reviewing contemporary Indian philosophy, one comes across
divergent influences on it. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that
Indian philosophy has primarily been influenced by Advaita Vedanta
and continues to develop under this influence. In this chapter, I shall
draw the attention of my readers to the transformation that the Advaita
theory of consciousness has undergone in Indian thought. In modem
times, one attempt to answer the questions raised in the previous chapter
was made by Sri Aurobindo. He rejects Satpkara's version of Advaita,
and its emphasis on the falsity of the world, and develops a metaphysical
position known as Integral Advaita. According to this position, the
brahman is both transcendent and immanent in the world, and the finite
individuals are self-manifestations of the brahman by its own infInite
creative energy. In his metaphysics, he subscribes to a theory of emergent
evolution; he further argues that the idea of evolution presupposes a
prior involution. Matter, maintains Aurobindo, develops through the
stages of life, mind, and many other levels of consciousness, because
the spirit had descended into matter and remains in it potentially. This is
a form of the classical satkiJryavada (that the effect pre-exists in the
material cause) that aJIows for the emergence of new qualitative changes.
In the last paragraph of his magnum opus, Tbe Life Divine, Sri
Aurobindo presents his spiritual vision in the following words:
If there is an evolution in material Nature and if it is an evolution of
being with consciousness and life as its two key terms and powers,
this fullness of being, fullness of consciousness, fullness of life must
be the goal of development towards which we are tel(ding and which
will manifest at an early or later stage of our destiny. The ~ e l f the
spirit, the reality that is disclosing itself out of the ftrst inconscience of
life and matter, would evolve its complete truth of" being and
consciousness in that life and matter. It would return to itself--or, if
its end as an individual is to return into its Absolute, it could make that
return also,-not through a frustration of life but through a spiritual
. completeness of itself in life. Our evolution in the Ignorance with its
chequered joy and pain of self-discovery and world-discovery, its half
fulfllments, its constant finding and missing, is only our first state. It
must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a self-
finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the Divinity
in things in that true power of itself in Nature which is to us still a
Supemature.
1
Though the above quotation begins with a conditional, the preceding
nine hundred and forty-six pages of The Life Divine seek to establish
that the claims made in the above paragraph are indeed true.
In this chapter, however, I am not concerned with Sri Aurobindo's
overall metaphysical system. I am concerned only with the bearing his
theory of evolution/involution has on his account of consciousness, which
has certain major affinities with the theory of Kashmir Saivism.
2
Abhinavagupta describes the nature of consciousness in its highest state
as spanda or the eternal throb of delight in manifestations, and argues
that its power or force for self-externalization is beyond the sphere of
time. Consciousness abides in the various forms of objectivity by means
of 'coagulation' (asrayiinariipatayii), as if consciousness assumes the
form of solidity of matter without losing its naure just as water
becomes ice without losing its nature. Consciousness voluntarily
(bodhasviitantryiideva) descends into the limitations of matter on account
of its inherent freedom.
3
Not unlike the other Vedantins, for example
Sarpkara, Abhinavagupta uses the metaphor of light; however, on his
interpretation, this light by its own freedom and delight evolves into the
multitude of worldly entities. The relation between consciousness and
its creative power is symbolized by the figures of Siva and Sakti. Whereas
Siva is of the nature of pulsation of creativity in general (siimiinya-
prakasa-spanda), Sakti is of the nature of stimulating the general creative
power into specific manifestations.
In his theory of involution! evolution, Sri Aurobindo also holds that
the evolutionary structure of the world process is due to consciousness-
force inherent in the brahman: 'All phenomenal existence resolves into
Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more as less material,
more or less gross or subtle forms for self-presentation to its own
experience. '4 However, how this force gives rise to consciousness is a
problem with which philosophers have been concerned, especially in
Transfonnations of the Advaita Theory of Consciousness 141
the Indian tradition, ever since the beginning of philosophy. As far as
force is concerned, Aurobindo sees in it a twofold movement; it
concentrates itself by being in a state of equilibrium or rest, and it diffuses
itself in movements in time. But the question arises: what is the relation
between this force and consciousness? Ordinarily, one understands by
consciousness what may be called the mental waking consci()usness.
Aurobindo calls it 'vulgar and shallow idea of the nature of consciousness'
and suggests that it must now' definitely disappear out of philosophical
thinking'. There is not only something in us which is conscious when
we sleep, but also in all seemingly unconscious states. Behind the
superficial waking consciousness there is a vast subliminal mind. This
subliminal mind, argues Aurobindo, has both superconscient and
subconscient dimensions. The superconscient arises above the mental
and the subconscient below the mental. Below the mental, there is a
vital consciousness, not only in plant and animal lives, but also in human
organism. There is also a consciousness dormant in the purely physical
level as indicated by the free movement of subatomic particles. Above
the mental, there is the superconscient, which is aware of the unity of all
beings and not the prim.acy of these divisions, which separate one mind
from another. When viewed from this wider perspective, for Aurobindo,
the force that pervades existence is inseparable from cit or consciousness;
citis also sakti (force). This consciousness-force is the stuff of which all
existence is made.
Man's consciousness cail. be nothing else 'than a form of Nature's
consciousness. It is there in other involved forms below Mind, it
emerges in Mind, it shall ascend into yet superior forms beyond Mind.
For the Force that builds the worlds is a conscious Force, the Existence
which manifests itself in them is conscious being and a perfect
emergence of potentialities in form is the sole object which we can
rationally conceive for its manifestation in the world of forms.6
Consciousness, like light, is not merely self-manifesting, it is also force
or energy-and as eljlergy it is capable of self-contraction and self-
expansion, descent and ascent. Thus, in his theory of involution/
evolution,7 Aurobindo argues that nature evolves on several levels
because the brahman (saccidcmanda: sat or existent being, cit or
consciousness-force, and cmanda or bliss) has already involved itself at
each level. From a logical point of view, prior to evolution there is
involution whereby the brahman seeks its own manifestation in the
multilevel world. The order of involution is as follows:
142
Cit: Consciousness
Existence

Consciousness-Force
Bliss
Supermind
Mind
Psyche
Life
Matter
After plunging into the farthest limit, that is, the lowest form,
consciousness turns around and begins climbing the steps it has earlier
descended. Evolution, in other words, is the inverse action of involution.
It is a conscious movement. Evolution presupposes involution. In fact,
evolution is possible because involution has already occurred: ' ... what
is an ultimate and last derivation in the involution is in the evolution the
last and supreme emergence.'8 Thus, the actual steps of the evolutionary
process are as follows:
Matter
Life
Psyche
Mind
Supermind
Bliss
Consciousness-Force
Existence
The first four in the order of evolution constitute the lower hemisphere
and the last four the upper hemisphere. Evolution from the lower to the
higher, that is, from matter to spirit, is possible because each level contains
within it the potentiality to attain a higher status:
Matter would not have become animate if the principle of life had not
been there constituting matter and emerging as a phenomenon of life-
in-matter; life-in-matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think,
reason, if the principle of mind had not been there behind life and
substance, constituting it as a field of operation and emergent in the
phenomenon of a thinking life and body; so too'spiritually in mind is
Transformations of the Advaita Theory of Consciousness 143
the sign of a power which itself has founded and constituted life, mind
and body and now emerging as a spiritual being in a living and thinking
body.9
Thus, a pervasive theme of Aurobindo's thinking is how mental
consciousness is to be transcended into supra-mental consciousness.
Mental consciousness, always measures, limits, separates things from
the indivisible whole to which they belong. It is not merely in its physical
perception but also in its creative thinking, that mind separates and fixes
those separated entities within what it takes to be their limit. It may have
the idea of an infinite unity of things, but it conceives of it vaguely as a
vast background. The liberation of the spirit into its true consciousness,
however, cannot be attained simply by the action of the higher principle
helping and transforming the lower. For example, life and mind evolve
in matter. They affect and modify the matter to some extent, and in tum,
are modified by it. They succeed in changing its immobility, inertia only
partially-they are not able to transform it altogether. The living body is
subject to death and decay. Ignorance and error also characterize the
mind that evolves in the matter. Mind has the power of analysis and
discrimination, but it cannot arrive at a true unity. We usually take it for
granted that the human mind with its rationality is the highest
achievement. Aurobindo questions this belief and holds that the supra-
mental consciousness does not direcdy descend into the mind, and that
a link is required, a kind of creative consciousness which contains and
views unity and diversity at once; it is intimately conscious of all the
relations of the one with the other. For want of a better word to express
this idea, Aurobindo calls such a power of divine creative consciousness,
the 'supermind' . In Aurobindo' s words, it is 'a power of Conscious-Force
expressive of real being, born out of real being, and partaking of its
nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is
conscious Reality thrOWing itself into mutable forms of its own
imperishable and immutable substance. '10 It is the culmination or the
consummation of mind. The difference between the supermind and the
mind is the difference in their way of looking at reality. The supermind
. has an integral oudook and it achieves a unitary picture of reality; the mind
by its very nature cuts and breaks apart the unitary whole into parts. The
supermind is the link which connects the two horizons, the lower and
the higher. The supermind develops the three aspects of the Absolute
without diViding or separating them in any way. Aurobindo calls the
supermind.the real idea. It is the reality that illuminates itself by its own
light and expresses the real truth of being. The instrumentality of the
144
Cit: Consciousness
supennind is needed for both: the descent of supra-mental consciousness
into the mind and its ascent to supra-mental consciousness.
The next step in the evolution, therefore, 'is an ascent to the
supemlind, which can be achieved through a triple transformation-
psychic, spiritual, and supra-mental. Psychic change is the removal of
the veil, which hides our psyche or soul. Psychic change, however, must
be supplemented by the spiritual change. This change gives us an abiding
sense of the Infinite-it is the experience of the true nature of the self,
the ISvara and the divine sakti. Whereas the psychic change is movement
inward, the spiritual change is movement upward. It helps one discover
one's spiritual being so that one may become conscious of the truth of
the supra-mental consciousness. The spiritual transformation must
eventually encompass all the levels of consciousness, for example, the
mental, vital, and material levels; however, their total transformation
cannot be materialized on this level. The spiritual transformation must
give way to the next higher transformation, that is, supra-mental
transformation built upon the psychic-spiritual transformation.
The psychic and spiritual transformations, though necessary, are not
sufficient for supra-mental transformation. Just as there are lines of
communication of the mental with what is below it, so also there are
lines of contact with what is higher. Also, the line of transition from
psychic-spiritual to supra-mental is not the same for all individuals.
Aurobindo discusses many such lines of communication with the supra-
mental. In this context, he distinguishes between many different possible _
movements of nlind or conSciousness, none of which succeeds in
revealing the original oneness of being, but in general, these movements
can be resolved into 'a stairway of four ascents'/I namely the higher
mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, and overnlind.
The higher mind is the first step above normal human intelligence.
It is 'a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual
knowledge' Y The normal human nlind depends for its knowledge on
sense experience, inference, and other sources of knowledge. The higher
nlind, on the other hand, can conceive a system of ideas 'at a single
view'. Since the higher mind remains limited to thought or cognition, it
seeks a more direct grasp of reality and moves from a conceptual realm
to a perceptual one, that is, from the higher to the illumined nlind.
Intense lustre, a splendour, and illumination of the spirit characterize
the illumined mind. In Aurobindo's words:
Consciousness that proceeds by sight, the consciousness of the seer,
is a greater power for knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker.
The perceptual power of the inner sight is greater and more direct
than the perceptual power of thought: it is a spiritual sense that seizes
something of the substance of the Truth and not only her figure; but it
outlines the figure also and at the same time catches the significance
of the figure, and it can embody here with a finer and bolder revealing
outline and a larger comprehension and power of totality than thought-
conception can manage.
13
The illumined mind possesses greater power and higher consciousness,
but the integration or transformation of human personality is not yet
complete. It must ascend to still another higher sphere.
The next step is the intuitive mind. It is an outcome of the meeting
of the subject and object consciousness. He notes: 'what is vaguely called
intuition, which itself is of many different kinds and in some forms may
be an intervention from above'.1
4
It gives a conceptual unity with the
object apprehended. It has nothing mental about it. At the mental level,
the knowledge of the external world is obtained by the sense and the
intellect-which grasp simply the appearances or forms of objects. At
the level of intuition, however, the consciousness of the subject penetrates
and comes in contact with the reality that underlies the appearances.
The mind also reaches out of the limits of the personal ego in order to
look at things with certain universality. There are other phenomena such
as what he called the phenomenon of genius, the phenomenon of
inspiration, of revelatory vision, not to speak of the vast field of mystic
and spiritual experiences.
15
Intuition, Aurobindo maintains, has a fourfold
power: 'A power of revelatory truth-seeking, a power of inspiration or
truth-hearing, a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of significance,
which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our mental
intelligence, or power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly
and exact relation of truth to truth. '
16
The intuitive mind, however, is not
the summit of superconscient consciousness. At the source of the intuitive
mLfld exists the overmind, which is in direct touch with the supermind.
Intuition, though possessing revelatory power, cannot serve as a
link between the mind and the supermind due to its instability and
influence of the mentaL It derives its power from a superconscient cosmic
mind, which Aurobindo calls the' overmind', which serves as a liaison
betvveen the mind and the superrnind.
Overmind is a delegate of the supermind. The overmind bridges the
gap between knowledge and ignorance, between the brahman and the
partial manifestation of the brahman in evolution. This is the highest
stage in the realm of ignorance. It seizes the unity of the brahman, yet, it
146
Cit: Consciousness
cannot hold on to it in a permanent realization. The overmental descent
(which Sri Aurobindo is supposed to have experienced on 24 November
1926) enables the illumined-intuitive to make contact with the global
consciousness. Thus, the overmental descent brings in the elimination
of egocentric attitudes and helps the soul attain a larger experience of
the delight of existence. However, it cannot take mind beyond itself. In
short, the overmind, though the highest stage of lower knowledge
immediately under the highest knowledge, is not able to effect an integral
transformation. What is needed is the supra-mental change, which is
effected by the descent of the supermind and the corresponding ascent
to the supermind. This transformation is axiologically and qualitatively
different from other transformations and, therefore, defies any
descriptions via language rooted in the perceptual-conceptual realm.
As a result, the overmind and all other levels of knowledge are
transformed by the force of the descent of supra-mental transformation.
The supra-mental transformation signifies a transformation of ignorance
into knowledge and the emergence of gnostic being. The spiritual life,
as a result, does not require a rejection of the world but rather implies a
free acceptance of it because a gnostic personality has realized that matter
is also consciousness. Thus, the world, Aurobindo argues, is neither a
figment of one's mind nor an illusion. His realistic streak would not
allow him to surrender the reality of the world to the deceptive play of
maya, the theory accepted by Satpkara. Aurobindo placed the many
and the becoming in the very heart of consciousness and made it the
basis as well as the source of the many-basis not in the sense of simply
being the support of the many, but rather in the sense of being the essence
of the many.
A very unique feature of Sri Aurobindo's theory of evolution is ~
triple character. It involves the processes of widening, heightening, and
integration. Widening involves extension of scope and incorporation of
co-existent forms, as well as development and growth towards higher
forms. Heightening means ascent from grade to grade, from the lower to
the higher. For example, when the principle oflife evolves out of matter,
there is an ascent. The consciousness present in a latent form in the
matter arises to a higher grade, that is, life. However, evolution is not
simply rising from the lower grades to the higher ones by the rejection
or exclusion of the lower ones. On the contrary, the lower ones are
uplifted and transformed. This is known as integration. It is 'a taking up
of what has already been evolved into eilch higher grade as it is reached
and a transformation more or less complete so as to admit of a total
Transformations of the Advaita Tbeory of Consciousness 147
changed working of the whole being and nature, an integration, must
also be part of the process, if the evolution is to be effective' .17 Aurobindo
further maintains that the individual is the basic instrument of this
evolution. An 'individual possesses within its being various powers of
consciousness that are capable of an unlimited awareness and
knowledge. These higher powers of consciousness must emerge,
develop, and reach completion through an individual's mental, vital,
and physical being in order for the spiritual evolution to be fulfilled.
Descent, he maintains, is a necessary condition of evolution. It is an
original force in the universe. In fact, ascent and integration are possible
because of the descent of the consciousness. The higher descends into
the lower and changes its order and working according to its own laws.
Thus when life emerges out of matter, it not only signifies an ascent to a
higher grade but also a transformation in matter.
Thus it is not surprising that according to Aurobindo these levels are
not independent, but are essentially a manifestation of the spirit. SrI
Aurobindo categorically affirms the value of each of these levels. But he
also states that when the lower levels are separated from their spiritual
source, they experience an ignorance of their true self and reality. In the
words of Aurobindo: 'This lapse, this separation creates a state oflimited
knowledge exclUSively concentrated on its own limited world-order and
oblivious of all that is behind it and of the underlying unity, a state
therefore of Cosmic and individual ignorance.'IB And, 'the end of this
triple process', Aurobindo observes, 'must be a radical change of the
action of the Ignorance into a basis of complete consciousness-
a completeness which exists at present only in what to us is
superconscience' .19 Thus his triple process is involved in the raising of
all potentially higher principles out of their lower status to the level of
the divine.
the short account of Aurobindo given above quickly reveals that
his theory of evolution is thoroughly spiritual. Spirit or consciousness is
not only the source of creation but also the final end of realization.
Saccidtmanda, as an infinite being creates the universe and unfolds
itself as many. Evolution is the unfolding of consciousness in matter,
until the former becomes explicit, open, and perceptible. Spirit's
involvement in matter, its manifestation in grades of consciousness is
the significance of evolution.
Anybody familiar with KashmIr Saivism will realize that Aurobindo' s
conception so far is explicitly present in KashmIr Saivism. Aurobindo's
original contribution, however, lies in going further and developing in
great detail a theory of the different levels of consciousness: consciousness
as implicit in matter (perhaps as manifested in the free play of elementary
particles); consciousness as again escaping from the state of dormancy
in matter into a state of relative freedom in animal sensitivity, which
may be called vital consciousness (manifested in the energy of a living
being towards self-maintenance, self-motion, self-reproduction, and
towards appropriating the energy of external nature towards its own
growth); and mental consciousness as expressed in mental thinking
dominated by difference, conceptual construction, and, above all, by a
subject-Dbject dualism. Aurobindo does not stop with this, but goes even
further, invoking the idea of several levels of consciousness higher than
the mental, both from resources of the ancient scriptures-the Vedas
and the Upani0ads-as well as from his own mystic experiences and
those of others. He introduces the categories of overmind and supermind;
these levels of consciousness are marked by the distinct ways in which
differences are brought together into unity. It is in the supra-mental
consciousness that identity and differences are most harmoniously
reconciled.
In our times, many theories have been advanced to explain how life
and mind evolve out of lower forms, for example, matter. Aurobindo
categorically asserts that evolution cannot be understood without coming
to grips with the process of involution. His account of consciousness has
at least the possibility of providing the basis on which a metaphysicS of
consciousness may be constructed to yield a satisfactory philosophy of
science, of physics, of biology, and of psychology. We have seen that
whereas Sarp.kara's Advaita remains indifferent to this project,
Aurobindo's remains committed to it. He repeatedly reiterates that
consciousness should not be restricted to the mental, the restriction
generally imposed by the philosophers. It is worth noting that unlike the
main tradition of Western thought, Indian philosophy clearly separates
consciousness (cit) from the mind (manas). Aurobindo's account of the
levels of consciousness both below the mental and above the mental,
therefore, provides a very promising prospect for a philosophy of science.
K.c. BHATTACHARYYA
Even in the writings of such an orthodox Vedantin as the late
K. C. Bhattacharyya, we find a remarkable attempt to begin with what he
calls 'bodily subjectivity'. Totally untouched by the thoughts of
Aurobindo, Bhattacharyya by his own reflections on Vedanta developed
a conception of the grades of subjectivity, which may also be called
grades of consciousness. In developing such a system, Bhattacharyya-
unlike Aurobindo-does not make use of a theory of evolution.
Bhattacharyya instead understands subjectivity to be that which
dissociates itself from objects (an object being that which is meant,
posited, or literally designated). By dissociating itself from objects, the
subject achieves its freedom, but through many different levels of
subjectivity, better yet, consciousness.
Bhattacharyya has written about consciousness, subjectivity, and
freedom at various places. A careful study of Bhattacharyya's writings
reveals that his thoughts on consciousness have passed through distinct
stages of development. My analyses of Bhattacharyya's account of
consciousness here will be based on his Studies in Vedcmtism,20 The
Subject as Freedom, 21 'The Concept of Philosophy', 22 and 'The Absolute
and its Alternative Forms'. 23
.Gopinath Bhattacharyya, K.C. Bhattacharyya's son and the editor of
his works entitled Studies in Philosophy, in the 'Introduction' to this
work, draws the attention of the readers to several of his father's 'inno-
vations'24 in Studies in Vedcmtism. In this section on Bhattacharyya's
account of consciousness, I shall confine my discussion only to three of
these innovations. These are:
1. A conception of the levels of consciousness;
2. Dream experience as a new dimension of existence;
3. Distinction between conscious dream, self-conscious dream,
and dreamless sleep.
In his earliest work Studies in Vedantism,25 especially in Chapter I,
Bhattacharyya provides a somewhat new interpretation of the p a ~ a d i c
doctrine of the four states of consciousness, namely, waking, dreaming,
dreamless sleep, and the turiya. He speaks of many stages of dream,
and also of transitional stages between waking and dreaming. He argues
that whereas in waking experiences, presentations and practical interests
determine the contents, in dream, the contents are copies of waking
percepts, without any sensation and attention, therefore, imaginative
construction is more free. Combinations of contents, impossible in waking
consciousness, characterize the dream state. In dream, there are no
sensations, and the consciousness of the body is at a minimal. In his
language, 'in dreams the distractions of this "heavy" body are reduced
to a minimum sometimes disappearing altogether; the necessity of
practical life is not so tyrannic, and hence there is unrestrained credulity' .26
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Cit: Consciousness
In dreaming consciousness, there is awareness of body, but only of
body which does not obey the laws of physics. In dream, I may fall from
a high-rise building, and not be hurt. I may move from one place to
another (from India to USA) without being subject to the laws of space,
time, and motion. In dreaming, 'practical necessity' is at a minimum.
However, it must be noted before proceeding that 'practical necessity'
and its determination of a content may function within dream; for
example, when I dream that I am thirsty, I look for water, and the water
I find quenches my thirst-all within dream. Further, according to
Bhattacharyya, space and time, within dream, lose their reference to the
body. Dream-space and dream-time are discontinuous. For example, in
my dream, I may be in Columbia, Missouri, one minute and in India the
next, without having to go through the intermediate space or time. So,
there is 'no rigid demand for uniformity', meaning that there are swprises,
discontinuities, unpredictable behaviour or events, which Bhattacharyya
describes as 'a gloriOUS life of thoughtless thoughtlessness' .27 It is
important to note in this context that though the dream contents lack
uniformity, continuity, etc., this incoherence (lack of uniformity,
continuity, etc.) is not felt to be such within dream.
28
Dream contents
and sensory presentations are never together, and cannot be compared.
For dreaming consciousness, the waking consciousness does not exist.
'In dream, the ideas do not consciously remember the corresponding
waking percepts: they are at once percepts. '29 It seems as if dream and
waking are two independent orders. Waking experience denies the
validity of dream. The dreaming consciousness, however, does not deny
the waking consciousness.
In short, in dream, the object consciousness is freer from reference
to the body and so purer than in waking consciousness. The
consciousness of body determines the limitations of waking
consciousness. Practical interests and sensory stimuli are grounded in
the body consciousness. Thus, dream is wider than the waking woi'ld.
30
More is possible in dream than in waking. Being free from sensation
(and body consciousness) dream allows for freer construction. Waking
experience claims to be true, but that is because of the overwhelming
importance of sensory givenness, of body, and of practical interest.
Gradually, we free ourselves from this dependence on the body, on
sensory awareness, and on practical interest. Will, especially moral will,
denies the claim of the given. Aesthetic intuition also rejects the
dependence on sensation.
Taking his clues from the dreaming consciousness, which suggests
this possibility of independence from the sensory given (and from body
consciousness and practical interest), Bhattacharyya suggests that if and
only if we could dream self-consciously, that is, control the dream images,
take our focus away from the 'heavy body', and centre it in a larger self,
we could achieve a higher order of truth than the waking experience.
Bhattacharyya's suggestion is to follow the lead of dream in freeing
ourselves from the limitations of the waking experiences, and still be in
possession of ourselves by dreaming self-consciously. This is not to
suggest that the dream is truer than the waking percept, rather each is
true within itself. Dreams do not deny the truth of the waking life. The
dream world, argues Bhattacharyya, has a wider possibility than the
waking world. There is no other phenomenon like it in our waking mental
life. Even in hallucination, there is some real sensory object and some
real peripheral excitement from within. However, rooted as we are in
our body and to the here and the now, this unbounded freedom of dream
consciousness is not for us truth giving but rather illusory.
This explains the three levels he distinguishes: conscious dreams,
self-conscious dreams, and dreamless sleep. Conscious dreams are
perceptions without sensations. In conscious dreams, ideas, without
reference to corresponding waking percept, are themselves percepts. In
self-conscious dreams objects come and go without startling us. The self
is free from the body, it may even see the body lying asleep, it is not
located anywhere" yet it looks at space. It is not startled by interruptions
of spatial and temporal continuity. The only way we can conceptualize
this experience is by saying that 'the self sees here with the whole of
space as one function' .31 The self seems to freely create this world, its
joys and sorrows. Bhattacharyya regards it to be a new plane of
consciousness.
In dreamless sleep the self is dissociated not only from
the body but also from the mind (empirical consciousness). It rests in
itself. Bhattacharyya regards it as identical with what Kant calls the
'transcendental unity of apperception', excepting that Kant regards it as
a mere thought and also as a fringe of empirical consciousness, while
Bhattacharyya regards it in isolation from empirical consciousness, but
also as a concrete reality, and not mere thought.
The undifferentiated consciousness of dreamless sleep leads to the
discussion of the ecstatic consciousness of samadhi. In the dreamless
state, the mind or the empirical consciousness is dissociated from the
self and the self is conscious only of a blank, of a positive nothing, like a
light revealing nothing but the surrounding darkness. The state of ecstasy
is not bare consciousness; it is rather supra-consciousness; it is the
Upanisadic turiya.
However, for a more systematic and detailed account of his thoughts
on consciousness, I shall make use of his work The Subject as Freedom
in which we find a systematic presentation of his theory, which is a
revised version of the account of consciousness found in his early.writings.
In this work, Bhattacharyya' s series of the gradation of consciousness-
from the waking consciousness at the lowest to the ecstasy at the highest
level-is replaced by another series, of the levels of subjectivity,
beginning with bodily subjectivity and ending with the subject as absolute
freedom.
In The Subject as Freedom, Bhattacharyya develops a new kind of
inquiry into the nature of the subject or of consciousness, which lies
midway between mystic intuition on the one hand, and an objective
metaphysical inquiry on the other. He calls it 'spiritual' or 'transcendental
psychology', in which he, like a phenomenologist, gives a descriptive
account of the various subjective functions. It seems that the very point
of beginning is an account of his complex and difficult theory of
intentionality although he does not use the word 'intentionality'. Whereas
for a phenomenologist, intentionality connects consciousness to the
world, for Bhattacharyya, to every mode of intentionalily there is a
corresponding' dissociation from the object' . This implies that for every
subjective function, there is a mode of freedom from objectivity. It is not
clear whether this reversal of the intentional reference, this dissociation
or freedom from the object, or return from outward directedness to the
inner freedom is compatible with the thesis of intentionality as ordinarily
understood. This is one of the questions Bhattacharyya does not discuss.
However, its importance becomes obvious if we evaluate Bhattacharyya' s
position vis-a.-vis modern phenomenology.
The different stages of subjectivity are: bodily subjectivity, psychic
subjectivity, and spiritual subjectivity.
Talking about bodily subjectivity, a notable feature ofBhattacharyya's
thinking, when placed against the background of the Indian systems of
philosophy, is the recognition of bodily subjectivity as primary. 'The
materialist view that the subject is but the body,' argues Bhattacharyya,
'is tme insofar as the body represents the beginning stage of being the
subject. But it ignores the unique singularity of one's own body even as
a perceived object. '32 The other perceived objects, one may say, are
constituted by their positions in space relative to the perceiver's body.
But the perceiver's own body cannot be located by her in the same way
Transformations of the Advaita-Theory of Consciousness 153
in the space. In this sense, her body is uniquely differentiated from the
other objects and cannot be entirely assimilated to the objective world.
One not only perceives one's own body from the outside (which is never
true of the body as a whole), but one is always aware of it from within in
what Bhattacharyya calls 'the feeling of the body'. So Bhattacharyya
makes a distinction between the 'perceived body' and the 'felt body'.
However, the relation between the two is such that although the
perceived body is distinguished from the felt body, the felt body is not
distinguished from the perceived body. This .illustrates the logic of
Bhattacharyya's thinking: If A is distinguished from B, B ~ not necessarily
distinguished from A. When B is not distinguished from A while A is
distinguished from B, B is a higher form of, in this case, subjectivity.
Bodily subjectivity, which is experienced in the felt body (as distinguished
from the perceived body), is the first realization of freedom from the
object by which the body is surrounded. The felt body or the body feeling
indeed, on Bhattacharyya's account, is the first level of freedom from
which all higher levels of freedom begin. For my present purpose, it is
important to add that what Bhattacharyya calls 'body feeling', or 'the
feeling of the body', is none other than the body consciousness or the
consciousness of the body. Let me also add that 'consciousness of the
\ body' may be rewritten as 'consciousness (of) the body'. The point of
doing this is to highlight what Sartre calls the non-thetic or non-intentional
nature of this consciousness, meaning thereby that the body in this case
is not an object of consciousness but rather that the body, the body feeling,
the body consciousness are all, at this primary level, one and the same.
The next level of subjectivity is the psychic subjectivity. The most
elementary level of this stage is image. The image is known without
spatial position and it is not known with a temporal position. If I have an
image of a house in my mind, I do not locate it as here or now. Within an
image, its parts may have spatial relations to each other, but the image
as a whole is not asserted to be here or there. The image rather appears
as a ghostly object, a sort of indefinite quaSi-object. But when it is attended
to in introspection, it changes into the act of imaging, a sort of standing
process from which emerges the next level of psychic subjectivity,
namely, 'thought' or 'idea'. The thought or idea of an object, as
distinguished from an image, unlike the image as a process, is definite,
and at its height becomes unpictureable meaning. Thus at this level,
thought is distinct from an image, not located either in space or in time.
The introspective awareness of this meaning as distinct from image is
awareneSs of something which is explicitly unobjective.
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Cit: Consciousness
The next stage of subjectivity, spiritual subjectivity, begins, on
Bhattacharyya's account, with feeling, and through introspection pro-
ceeds beyond introspection to the subject as freedom. Until now the
subject was being experienced as being free from objectivity, but in this
stage, it is experienced as realized freedom. Feeling is more subjective
than the preceding stages insofar as it has no conscious reference to an
object. In thought, content of thought appears to be distinct from the act
of thinking itself, but in feeling the content of feeling is not given as
distinct from the feeling itself. If feeling represents a complete dissocia-
tion from objectivity, willing is, for Bhattacharyya, a free identification
with objectivity. If in the attitude of feeling, there is a withdrawal from
the object, in the attitude of willing, there is a conquest over the object.
The level of subjectivity which is beyond all introspection is the
silent self-enjoying 'I', the absolute intuitable self. In the higher stage of
subjectivity, while there is a feeling of freedom, there is also more and
more assurance in the possibility of actually achieving this freedom. In
the intuitive experience of the self, this demand for realizing the subject
as absolute freedom is felt, but not known. We are left unclear as to
what the realization of subject as absolute freedom really is like, that is
to say, if it is knowledge, or feeling, or willing. However, in his later
writings, he clarifies his position further,
At the outset of his paper 'The ~ n c e p t of the Absolute and its
Alternative Forms',33 Bhattacharyya declares that 'philosophy starts in
reflective consciousness' .34 Taking philosophy to be the rational analysis
of experience, he points out that in reflection there is an awareness of a
content that is related to consciousness. Bhattacharyya calls the mutual
relation of reflective consciousness and its content 'implicational
dualism'.35 This relation of content and consciousness, however, is not
final to reflection. There is a demand that the indefinite relation
be defined, a demand that is possible only in supra-reflective
consciousness.
36
The concept of the 'Absolute' falls within the realm of
'supra -reflective consciousness'. So one is left with the definition of the
Absolute as that which is free from the implicational dualism of content
and consciousness.
37
This may lead one to believe that for Bhattacharyya
the Absolute involves an identity of content and consciousness. This,
however, is not the case. Bhattacharyya argues that this implicatory
distinction varies according to whether consciousness is knowing, willing,
or feeling. Reflective consciousness is the only tool through which
philosophy can reach out to the Absolute; one Ip.ust accept knowledge
(truth), willing (freedom), and feeling (value) as its three separate forms.
Transformations of the Advaita Tbeory of Consciousness 155
In his article 'The Concept of Philosophy', Bhattacharyya further
clarifies his position. He attempts to arrive at a concept of knowledge by
an analysis of thinking and speech. The task of philosophy is the
justification of beliefs by a 'higher kind of knowledge' which can be
reached by analysing speech and thinking. Speech and thinking admit
of grades-consequently we get the grades of thought-and grades of
thinking point to the grades of theoretic consciousness.
38
The belief that
'the Absolute is', is implied in theoretic consciousness of 'I am not' . The
denial of 'I' is possible because of our belief that the Absolute is. Theoretic
consciousness not only means that the Absolute (though positively
believed) is negatively understood by way of symbols, but also implies
that the Absolute is conceived as distinct from itself. With this in mind,
Bhattacharyya argues that consciousness functions diversely, or better
yet alternately, as knowing, willing, and feeling. The relation between
consciousness and its content is different in each case. In knowing, the
content is not constituted by consciousness. In willing, it is constituted
by consciousness, and in feeling the content constitutes 'some kind of
unity'39 with consciousness. In each attitude the dualism of the content
and consciousness can be overcome; consequently, each has its own
formulation of the Absolute. In knowing, the content is freed from
consciousness and the Absolute is truth. In willing, consciousness is freed
from content and the Absolute is freedom. In feeling, there is a
consciousness of unity and the Absolute is value. Thus, in his later
writings, Bhattacharyya left room for three different paths reaching not the
same but three different Absolutes, or supra-reflective consciousnesses.
While, in general, Indian philosophical thought has an objectivist
conception of body (with the exception of, possibly, the Tantric and the
Yogacara Buddhist analyses), Bhattacharyya's introduction of bodily
subjectivity, quite independent of any influence from Western
I
pHenomenologists, has managed to move this idea to the centre of
attention; this is no small achievement. We must remember at this juncture
that bodily subjectivity is only a beginning; the freedom from objects
that it announces is achieved through a series of steps, through which
the subjective is increasingly internalized, until in the experience of
transcendental consciousness, it is fully realized. Running throughout
these stages is an understanding of subjectivity (possibly synonymous
with consciousness) as that which dissociates itself from objects. The
concept of dissociation has played an important role in Bhattacharyya's
thinking; it provides something that the concept of intentionality lacks.
Intentionality establishes an original relation of consciousness to the
world, but this relation threatens to overwhelm consciousness and
transform it into a 'being in the world' (recall Heidegger's transformation
of Husserl 's thought). The idea of dissociation corrects this one-sidedness.
Consciousness not only relates to the world but also tends to distantiate
itself from it. Martin Buber characterized human existence by the twin
concepts of 'Urdistanz' and 'Beziehung'. Bhattacharyya' s idea of
dissociation exactly develops this idea of Urdistanz along Vedantic lines,
while intentionality is the Beziehung or relatedness that Buber talks about.
Consciousness, on Bhattacharyya's account, carries a felt freedom from
its objects at every level until its final actualization in the Advaitic state
of freedom.
].N. MoHANTY
Mohanty's thoughts on consciousness are best found in his early work
The Concept 0/ Intentionality.40 In his later writings extending up to the
1990s, there are numerous discussions on consciousness, but they never
come together in one piece, which can be easily referred to. Perhaps
one perspicuous account is to be found in The Empirical and the
Transcendental: A Fusion 0/ Horizons, edited by this author.41
In Part ill of his work, The Concept o/Intentionality, Mohantywrestles
with the two major conceptions of consciousness found in the West and
India alike, namely, those who understand consciousness in terms of
intentionality and those who understand it in terms of reflexivity. He
discusses the question of the relation between the two and wonders
whether there is any' sort of opposition', 'incompatibility', between the
two. As a phenomenologist, he was impressed by perhaps the most
important and the central theme of phenomenology, that is, its concept
of intentionality. Brentano had held that all mental phenomena are
distinguished by the fact that they alone are directed towards an object.
Husserl further developed this idea through various phases and argued
that everything in the world, and the world itself, derives its meaning
from consciousness and its intentionality. Thus, it is not surprising that
Mohanty in The Concept 0/ Intentionality seems to be committed to the
Brentano thesis that all consciousness is intentional. That in itself is
nothing new; however, coming as he does from the tradition of Indian
philosophy, which has been a major influence on his thinking, he had to
come to terms with the question of the reflexivity of consciousness found
in Vedanta. We saw in the last chapter that the d ~ a i t a school of Vedanta
denies intentionality to consciousness. Sarpkara, at the outset of this
commentary on the Brahmasutra, declares the mutual incompatibility
of the subject and the object in no uncertain terms.42 We noted earlier
that the Advaitins took consciousness to be definable as self-shining or
self-manifesting (svayarpprakasa), and to explain its object-directedness,
they resorted to the idea of ignorance (avidya). If consciousness is s l f ~
manifesting, it camiot be at the same time intentionally outward directed.
Some phenomenologists have also emphasized the incompatibility
between the two. Medeau-Ponty, for example, held that consciousness,
if it were completely absorbed in the object, would cease to be
consciousness. Thus, it is not surprising that in his early writings, Mohanty
refused to admit any such non-intentional consciousness and attributed
to faith the belief that intentionality may gradually disappear while
consciousness will remain. Along with the issues of intentionality and
reflexivity, another concern occupied Mohanty's mind in this work. He
was concerned about finding a place for unconscious intentionalities
within a consciousness, which is reflexive. It seems that he was led to
this problem by thinking over the relation between Husserl and Freud
(both of whom studied with Brentano), and in trying to find a solution
for this, Mohanty was influenced by Ricoeur's works, Freedom and
Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntarj3 and Freud and Philosophy.
An Essay on Interpretation.
44
In response to the above challenges, Mohanty gives a twist to the
concept of reflexivity, which he had appropriated from Brentano and
Husserl. All consciousness is reflexive, that is to say, it always turns back
on itself. Whereas Brentano and Hussed tend to construe this as another
act, objectifying the primary act of consciousness, Mohanty uses the
Advaita Vedantic thesis of svaprakasatvc;l, . especially the definition of
svaprakasatva as that which 'has the fitness of being immediately known
without being an object of any cognition (avedyatve sati aparok$a
vyavahara yogyatvam svayamprakasalak$atJam), , to resolve this alleged
incompatibility. In concrete terms, the Advaita thesis amounts to saying
that consciousness is dmmediately experienced, even though it is not an
object of knowledge. Mohanty suggests that the reflexivity of
consciousness cannot be a second-order intentionality, but must be
another, further irreducible, dimension of consciousness. In so dOing,
he succeeds in keeping together the two dimensions of consciousness:
its intentionality or object-directedness and its reflexivity or self-
manifestation. In view of these, Mohanty proposes that we recognize
both degrees of intentionality and degrees of reflexivity. With this
proposal, Mohanty not only wishes to make room for a great variety of
consciousness that we all experience as well as for the Freudian
unconscious, but also to expand the scope of consciousness to include
affective states such as pleasure and pain and volitional states such as
wanting and willing. Keeping the above in mind, let me now turn to the
specifics of his theory of the degrees of intentionality and the degrees of
reflexivity.
First of all, he connects reflexivity to intentionality in such a way
that in his view-which comes very close to Ramanuja's--consciousness
is self-manifesting only insofar as it is intentional. As is well known,
Ramanuja argues that consciousness manifests itself to its subject
(svasrayaf(L pratD at the time it is manifesting a subject (vi!!aya prakasana
belayaf(L). This means that my consciousness is not manifested to you; it
is manifested only to me. It also means that my past consciousness is not
manifested to me now, but can only be inferred. From this it also follows
that consciousness which is not intentional is not self-manifesting. We
must keep in mind that the thesis that only intentional consciousness is
self-manifesting does not imply that all intentional consciousness is self-
manifesting, because one's unconscious desires, beliefs, etc., are
intentional. However, being unconscious, they are not self-manifesting.
Accordingly, in his theory of intentionality and the degrees of reflexivity,
Mohanty argues that while all consciousness is reflexive, this reflexivity
has degrees which vary from full clarity to almost indistinct awareness ..
In the latter case, one is aware that something is there but one does not
exactly know what it is. This would include within its fold such things as
unconscious desires. A patient goes to a therapist being bothered by
some mental problem; the purpose of psychoanalysis is to dig out the
source of the patient's problem. The analyst and the patient together
discover that the patient all along had an unconscious desire for
something and it is this discovery which leads to therapeutic
consequences. It is not as though something unknown was there and is
now found out, but rather upon its discovery the patient recognizes that
it was there all along, which suggests that there was a sort of reflexivity
which never rose to the level of distinctness and clarity. Mohanty connects
it with the way at first the unconscious desire, not yet attached to a definite
object, stirs in the mind of the patient, and in the course of therapy attaches
to a definite object/and upon receiving assent from the patient becomes
fully intentional, and recovers its full reflexivity as well. In other words,
according to Mohanty, it is not as though the so-called unconscious desire,
as unconscious, is a fully intentional state. It seems rather to be the case
that it becomes a fully formed intentional state, that is to say, it acquires
Transfonnations of the Advaita Theory of Consciousness 159
a determinate object only through the process of therapy in which the
analyst and the patients work together. Thus, on Mohanty's account the
'so-called unconscious is a low degree of reflexive consciousness, but
not a negation or lack of consciousness. One could say that such
intentionalities as those of bodily movements, the intentionality of
emotional and affective life, are less transparent than the intentionality
of knowledge. Thus with his theory of the degrees of reflexivity and the
degrees of intentionality, Mohanty finds a framework for the Freudian
theory of the unconscious within Husserl' s phenomenology. In Mohanty' s
words:
This principle helps us to grade the intentional states in a certain scale
at the one end of which are the so-called unconscious states, followed
by the purely bodily intentionality, the horizon or preconscious
intentionalities, conscious intentionalities with their various gradations
leading up, at the other end, to knowledge, the most free from any
content, the most transparent of all intentionalities at the same time. 45
Accordingly, in his The Concept of Intentionality, Mohanty arranges
different states of consciousness in such a way that the more fully a state
of consciousness is intentional, the more reflexive or self-manifesting it
is. Mohanty argues that the degree of intentionality on his scheme varies
with the degree of transparency of consciousness and both depend upon
the presence or the absence of the hyletic component in the intentional
experience. In other words: ' ... to the extent to which a state is intentional,
i.e., to the extent to which it excludes opacity and approximates towards
the completely empty consciousness, a consciousness that is in itself
nothing, that is fully exhausted in its intentional function, is also the
most intentional'.46 In this scheme, the cognitive states come at the top
while the so-called unconscious states remain at the bottom. Volitional
and affective intentionalities fall in the middle. Jt is worth noting that in
so dOing, Mohanty is siding with the Buddhists, who regard these states
as modes of consciousness, while rejecting the and
Vedanta views, wh'ich regard these states as possible objects of
consciousness. Mohanty returns to this idea of the 'degrees of
intentionality' and the 'degrees of reflexivity' in the 1990s in the essay
'Phenomenology and Psychology' .47
In his later writings, in his interpretations of Indian philosophy and
Husserl, Mohanty tries to come to grips with the relation between the
empirical and the transcendental consciousness. While interpreting
modem Western phenomenology, he arrives at the view (for which he
finds support in Kant) that there are not two different levels of
consciousness, the empirical and the transcendental, but all consciousness
in itself is transcendental.
I reject the two-world theory. Consciousness is, in its innermost nature,
transcendental-the same consciousness, which interprets itself, under
strictly definable conditions as human, as biological and physiological,
as bodily, as social, in brief, as empirical. I have fundamental objections
to the way the distinction between the empirical and the transcendental
is usually drawn, which misleadingly suggests as though the
transcendental subjectivity is not the subject's experience of herself.
The other member of the pair, that is, the' empirical', also misleadingly
suggests that one experiences only oneself as bodily and as a member
of the natural and social orders. 'Experience', as I have said earlier, is
multilayered. I experience myself as bodily, as an existent Dasein, as
a part of nature, as subject to external causality, but also--once I
bring into effect the epoche-as transcendental subjectivity. As
transcendental, I am also a cognitive, affective and willing, acting,
speaking and moving around, not a mere thinking ego.
48
It is transcendental insofar as consciousness is not only intentional, that
is to say, has objects, but also confers meaning on its object and to that
extent interprets it. If there is any uninterpreted data in consciousness,
data such as bare sensations, which Husser! calls 'byle', only may be
purely empirical. But consciousness is not at any level merely receptive
of such data, but always conceptualizes it, or interprets it, or gives it a
meaning. In his reading ofIndian philosophy, Mohanty holds, in kinship
with the Buddhist view, that even transcendental consciousness is
corporeal and may have a sensuous or hyletic component. It is
nevertheless transcendental inasmuch as while it constitutes the objects,
it is not a mere abstract substratum of manifestation but rather the concrete
life of consciousness from which all interpretations have been removed.
He holds that consciousness that is transcendental in this sense is identical
with the empirical consciousness, with one difference: whereas the latter
is subject to what Husserl c_alled 'mundanizing apperception', the former
is the same entity freed from such interpretation. This is Mohanty's
understanding of Sarpkar's thesis that the ftva is identical with the
brahman. However, in order to sustain this reading he has to locate the
so-called 'mundanizing apperception' in the very heart of transcendental
consciousness, which is precisely what Advaita does when it makes
aVidya rest upon consciousness.
The idea that progressively emerges in his thinking is an attempt to
accommodate what we earlier called the Advaitic fnsight. In many of his
later essays, for example, he makes a distinction between consciousness
and awareness--consciousness being intentional or object directed and
awareness being the self-manifestedness which is not intentional but
which accompanies intentional consciousness.
49
Such a thesis seems to
make room for non-intentional consciousness, which, within the
phenomenological movement, Michel Henry alone seems to have clearly
recognized. 50 However, it must be pointed out, and Mohanty must come
to grips with it, that recognition of a non-intentional 'awareness' must
be made compatible with the earlier theory outlined in The Concept of
Intentionality, where the reflexivity was made dependent on
intentionality. It is difficult to see how Mohanty would accomplish this
task, simply calling one' awareness' and the other' consciousness' might
Seem to be an easy way out.
Thus, we see that Mohanty, very much like Aurobindo and
Bhattacharyya, tried to bring the insights of Indian philosophy into
harmony with modern Western thinking, particularly in the field of
phenomenology. He did this first in his book The Concept of
Intentionality, and has persisted in this project through many
subsequent writings. His concern has been to keep together two
aspects of consciousness recognized in Indian thought: reflexivity
(svayarrtprakasatva) and intentionality (sav4ayaktva). Whereas Sarpkara
highlighted the mutual incompatibility of these two aspects, Mohanty
proposes that we recognize that there are both the degrees of
intentionality, and the degrees of reflexivity.
It is remarkable how all three contemporary philosophers discussed
above straddle the chasm between phenomenology and metaphysics,
without quite closing it. Sri Aurobindo is at one end, in whom we find a
metaphysics of consciousness in the grand Hegelian-Advaitic tradition,
where one being (=spirit) goes through levels of self-manifestation, self-
differentiation and then recovers its unity. At the other end is ].N. Mohanty
who claims to give a purely phenomenological description of the way
in which different states of consciousness, intentionality, and reflexivity
are intertwined in different degrees. Claiming, as this theory does, to be
a pure phenomenology, it does not proceed to make metaphysical claims
regarding being, reality, and truth. In between the two stands K.C.
Bhattacharyya, in a most -remarkable way, uses a descriptive
phenomenology to reach Advaitic metaphysics of self.
And yet all three share (1) a common thesis about levels of conscious-
ness, and (2) a common recognition of bodily consciousness. The second
thesis is particularly challenging, for recognizing bodily consciousness
162
Cit: Consciousness
(for Sri Aurobindci, in addition, consciousness as involved in matter)
runs against the traditional Advaitins' rejection of J;lody as a product of
ignorance. For Bhattacharyya, bodily subjectivity yields our first
experience of freedom, which reaches its final end in the Advaita's
experience of the 'self as freedom'. Body is no more rejected as umeal.
Waking consciousness (which is centred in the body) is still a lower
level of consciousness to be transcended in dream, dreamless sleep,
and ecstasy. If they are different dimensions of consciousness, none is
unreal, none is simply ignorance. The thesis of the grades of
consciousness then may be a secure foundation to build upon.
What Indian philosophy still needs to do is appropriate these and
other valuable insights gained from the tradition into a metaphysics based
on our knowledge of brain and neurological sciences as well as physics
of elementary particles. I have hope in the possibility of doing so.
Notes
1. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (New York: Dutton, 1951), p. 947.
2. The non-dualistic Kashmir Saivism is known as Trika-Sastra or Trika-
Sasana. The term' trika' implies its acceptance of trinity or triad, whether it be
Siva, Sakti, and nara, or para, para para, and apara. The nature of ultimate
reality is to manifest. 'If the Highest Reality did not manifest in infinite variety,
but remained cooped up within its solid, singleness, it would neither be the
Highest Power nor consciousness, but something like a jar.' Jaidev Singh's
Introduction to Siva Sutras: The Yoga of Supreme Identity (Delhi: MotHal
Banarsidass, 1988), p. vi. Parama Siva is an undivided undifferentiated unity of
the 'I' and 'this'.
Parama Siva has infinite powers. Nonetheless, there are five which are
considered more fundamental than the others: cit, ananda, iccba, jfiana, and
kriya. Cit is the power of self-revelation, the changeless principle behind all
changes. In this aspect, the Ultimate Reality is known as Siva. Ananda is the
absolute bliss and joy, which does not depend on anything external for its joy.
In this aspect Ultimate Reality is known as Sakti. Jccba is the willpower to
manifest the universe out of itself: a sort of divine resolve as to what to create.
In this aspect, he is known as Sadasiva. Jfiana is the power of knowing the
relationship inherent in all finite objects of the world. In this aspect, the Ultimate
Reality is known as isvara. And, finally, kriya is the power to assume any form,
i.e., to create. In this aspect, the Ultimate Reality is known as SUddbavidya or
Sadavidya.
Thus, it is said that the universe is only an expansion of the power of
Parama Siva. Or, to put it differently, Parama Siva, in his aspect as Sakti pervades
the universe thus produced, and at the same time remains transcendent without
being affected in any shape or form by the manifestations of the universe. With
the opening out of Sakti, the world appears; and disappears with its closing
down. There have been countless universes before this and there will be many
of these universes in the future. Creation and dissolution (pralaya) follow each
other in an unending cyclic process, each successive universe an inevitable
consequence of causes generated by the one preceding it by a kind of causal
necessity.
Since there is nothing apart and independent of Siva, the elements of
the universe are nothing but Siva himself. These elements are called tattvas and
Saivism maintains that there are altogether thirty-six principles as opposed to
twenty-four of the Siirp.khya system.
Parama Siva has two aspects, viz., transcendental and immanent or
creative. The creative aspect of Parama Siva is known as Siva tattva, the initial
creative movement of Parama Siva. The creation of the universe is in a sense .
self-limitation of Siva, which is responsible for the polarity of 'subject' and
'object', aharrz and idarrz. Initially, this dichotomy is ideal as it is in the form of
an idea only. Therefore, it is called the pure order, i.e., manifestation in which
the real nature of the Ultimate Reality is not veiled. However, after the primary
self-limitation, Siva undergoes a secondary limitation, where the play of maya
begins. From this stage onward,. there is the impure order in which the real
nature of the Ultimate Reality is concealed, and from which a real sense of
difference emerges. .
3. Abhinavagupta, ParatriSikil-Vivara1Ja: The Secret of Tantric Mysticism
(trans.) Jaidev Singh (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988), p. 35.
4. Ibid., p. 76.
5. Ibid., p. 80.
6. Ibid., pp. 84-5.
7. For a detailed discussion of Aurobindo's theory of evolution, see this
author's 'Sri Aurobindo and his Theory of Spiritual Evolution: A Critical
Appraisal', Dialogue and Alliance, Vol. 4, No.4, Winter 1990-,-1. .
8. The Life Divine, pp. 759--60.
9. Ibid., p. 759.
10. Ibid., p. 109.
11. Ibid., p. 833.
12. Ibid., p. 835.
13. Ibid., p. 840.
14. Ibid., p. 252.
15. Ibid., pp. 252-3.
16. Ibid., p. 843.
17. Ibid., p. 627.
18. Ibid., p. 591.
19. Ibid., p. 627.
20. Gopinath Bhattacharyya (ed.), Studies in Philosophy (Calcutta:
Progressive Publishers), Vol. I, 1956 and Vol.u, 1958 ..
21. K.C. Bhattacharyya, The Subject as Freedom (Amalner, Bombay: Indian
Institute of Philosophy, 1930). Reprinted in Studies in Philosophy, Vol. u,
pp. 367-454.
22. KC. Bhattacharyya, 'The Concept of Philosophy' , Studies in Philosophy,
Vol. II, pp. 457-79.
23. KC. Bhattacharyya, 'The Concept of the Absolute and its Alternative
Forms', ibid., pp. 121-43.
24. Gopinath Bhattacharyya, Introduction, Studies in Philosophy, p. xx.
25. KC. Bhattacharyya, Studies in Vedcmtism (Calcutta: Calcutta University
Press, 1907), p. 11. Reprinted in Studies in Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 1-90.
26. Gopinath Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 12.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p. 14.
31. Ibid., p. 16.
32. Gopinath Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 412.
33. For a discussion of some of the important issues surrounding
Bhattacharyya's conception of the Absolute in a clear and critical manner, see
Bina Gupta, 'Alternative Forms of the Absolute: Truth, Freedom, and Value
in KC. Bhattacharyya', International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20 (1980),
pp.291-306.
35. The implicational relation of content and consciousness is different from
the ordinary implication. In an ordinary implication, e.g., 'X implies Y', a relation
exists between the former, which is definite and independent of implication,
and the latter, which it implies. Unless the definite term 'X' is there, the relation
cannot be one of implication. In the implicational relation of content and
consciousness, no such definite term exists. Thus, in reflection, the relation of
consciousness to itself as its content points to a factual relation or factual unity
of which one at least is not really a term.
36. Bhattacharyya's second favourite word, after 'alternation', is 'demand',
which appears frequently in his writings.
37. Gopinath Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 489-90.
39. Ibid., p. 485.
40. IN. Mohanty, The WarrenH. Green,
Inc., 1972).
41. Bina Gupta (ed.), The Empirical and the Transcendental: A Fusion of
Horizons (Lanham/Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).
42. See Adhyasabhi4)la of Satpkara's commentary on the Brahmasutra.
43. Ricoeur no,tes: 'A careful phenomenology of perception ... warns us
against the simplicistic dilemma: either perception or awareness of oneself is
identified and all I ever know is myself, or perception deals with the other than
self and is unconscious, consciousness being posterior and super-added. ... the
unconscious does not think, does not perceive, does not remember, does not
judge. And yet, "something" is unconscious, something which is akin to
perception, aki.r:l to memory, akin to judgement, and which is revealed in the
analysis of dreams and neuroses .... There is in that "something" that which
sustains an act of perception, but that is not yet an act of perception but an
impressional matter not yet brought to life by an intentional aim which would
at the same time be a light for the self. Briefly, it is not yet a consciousness of ...
Psychoanalysis forces us to admit that the infra-perceptive "impressions" can
be dissociated from their corresponding intentionality and undergo alterations
such that they are cloaked by an apparent meaning which seems absvrd.' See
Paul Ricoeur, Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary (trans.)
Erazim V. Kohak (Evanstori: Northwestern University Press, 1979), pp. 387-8.
44. Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (trans.)
Denis Savage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 375-95.
45. ].N. Mohanty, The Concept of Intentionality, p. 171.
46. Ibid.
47. Bina Gupta (ed.), Explorations in Philosophy, Vol. II (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
48. Bina Gupta (ed.), The Empirical and the Transcendental, p. 261.
49 .. ].N. Mohanty, 'Knowledge and Ignorance', in Bina Gupta (ed.),
Explorations in Philosophy, Vol. I (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000).
50. 'if the world phenomenalizes itself in the original revelation immanent
to the act of original imagination, it is because consciousness of world is effective
only upon the foundation in it of a consciousness to which the world does not
belong. Consciousness of the world is always a consciousness without world.'
Michel Henry, The Essence of Manifestation (trans.) Girard Etzkorn (The Hague,
Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), p. 265. Also see, Section II, no. 2 and
Appendix, no. 71.
7
Comparative Assessment
Questions, Criticisms, and
Concluding Reflections
In this book, I have given an account of various theories of consciousness
in Indian philosophy. In recent times, 'consciousness' has come to be a
theme of major concern for Western philosophers. By making the concept
of intentionality their central concern, phenomenologists have developed
an elaborate theory of consciousness. Their methods of reduction and
epoche have served to purify empirical consciousness of all naturalistic
and objectivistic interpretations, while allowing for the emergence of a
concept of consciousness which is both concrete and transcendental.
Consciousness is taken by the phenomenologists who follow Husserl to
be the constitutive source of all meanings. At the same time, this
transcendental consciousness is also recognized as being a temporal flow.
This temporality of transcendental consciousness is not only not the same
as the temporality of worldly events and processes; it is also taken to be
the underlying source of objective temporality. Finally, among analytic
philosophers in the West and many philosophers of science, there is a
renewed interest in the nature of consciousness. There was a time when
consciousness was simply set aside as an 'epiphenomenon', as being
completely reducible to physical processes. Today, philosophers and
scientists reject this simplistic reductionism and wish to find a place for
consciousness within the scheme of things, including a theory of the
human brain.
In light of this renewed interest in the concept of consciousness, the
Indian theories may be worth conSidering by philosophers of the Eastern
and the Western persuasions alike. The Sarpkhya and Vedanta theories
unconditicmally reject any kind of reduction of consciousness to matter
or even to body. They also reject any possibleoaccount of causal origin
of consciousness. However, they do not object to reducing mind to matter,
167
though they keep consciousness ontologicaliy distinct from what remains
outside the purview of such explanations of consciousness without which
no brain states or physical states could amount to knowing. In this respect,
the Advaita Ve9-anta thesis must be taken seriously, as much as the new
Advaitic version of Sri Aurobindo. The readers at this juncture might ask:
What about the relevance of the Indian tradition for the other half of the
contemporary Western thought, namely, phenomenology and ili those
philosophical perspectives that emerge out of phenomenology?
I
Going back almost a century before modem phenomenology, the
principal achievements in Western thinking on consciousness are to be
found in Kant and Hegel. I shall make a few remarks about how Indian
theories of cit compare to them. To recall these conceptions briefly might
help to situate Indian thinking in that context.
In Kant's philosophy, one has to distinguish between what he calls
mental representations and consciousness. Mental representations are
the sensations and intuitions ordered in space and time. The function of
consciousness is to synthesize them by bringing them under concepts.
According to Kant, consciousness has the function of synthesizing the
sensory impressions received through the faculty of sensibility; he called
the a priori forms of this synthesis the 'categories'. Consciousness has
the primary function of synthesis. It is also an in.tellectual synthesis and
insofar as it exercises these functions, it unifies not only the objects of
knowledge but also itself under the form of what he calls the
transcendental unity of apperception or the unity of self-consciousness.
The unity of self-consciousness and the unity of objects are correlates,
and both are functions of consciousness. Kant at times distinguishes
between transcendental consciousness and empirical consciousness (in
Kant's language 'trflnscendental apperception' and 'empirical
apperception'), meaning by the latter the temporally ordered
representations received by what he calls the 'inner sense'. But, strictly
speaking, consciousness for Kant is transcendental inasmuch as it consists
in the exercise of the function of synthesis.
The Kantian consciousness in synthesizing the data and welding
them into judgements brings all human knowledge under the form of
self-consciousness which he describes as 'I think'. There are four
components of this process that I would like to emphasize in this context:
168
Cit: Consciousness
(1) consciousness is intellectual, better yet, thought; (2) consciousness
is always, insofar as it produces judgements, self-conscious;
(3) consciousness is always conscious of object; ,and (4) while human
beings' inner mental life is incurably temporal, the modes of thinking
are intellectual, that is to say, logicaL A faculty of the mind called
imagination mediates between the logical and the temporal by
temporalizing the logical concepts of thought.
Hegelian philosophy introduced a new dimension to the thinking
on the theme of consciousness, Building upon the foundations of Kant,
Hegelian thinking first brought out that consciousness is a developing
process and this development is historicaL The history of consciousness
which Hegel describes in his Phenomenology is the history of the different
forms of consciousness that give shape to the world; each such form of
consciousness along with its world is dialectically overcome by the one
which appears next, This process is meant to prepare the ground, in
Hegel's view, for the appearance of the Absolute Spirit in concrete human
context in which the subject-object dualism of the earlier forms of
consciousness is reconciled.
Indian philosophy generally lacks this idea of synthesis on the part
of consciousness. Consciousness in the Indian tradition, despite the
internal differences among various schools, is never construed as a purely
intellectual thinking. The Western idea of thought as a separate and
autonomous faculty is difficult to render into Sanskrit philosophical
language. One searches in vain for an equivalent of the word' reason' or
Vernunft in Sanskrit. Closest perhaps is the Sanskrit term 'buddhi'.
Consciousness does not construct its objects; it is meant to present its
objects as they are. Consciousness in the Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism
manifests its object and also manifests itself. Whether one considers the
realist schools and Mimarp.sa, or at the other end the
school of Advaita Vedanta, consciousness does not manufacture its object.
It simply reveals it. This shows that there is a strong element of realism
in Indian thinking. It is only in Buddhism that one finds views very similar
to Kantian views. With the exception of Buddhism, especially the
Buddhism of Dignaga, we do not encounter a Kantian-like doctrine of
categories in Indian thought. Yogacara Buddhists argue for the identity
of the object as well as of the subject; both are constructs, although in
detail, namely, in the theory of the forms of the construction or the
categories, the Buddhist and the Kantian accounts are different. The
Kantian thesis that all consciousness is self-consciousness seems to have
a close resonance to the Buddhist idea of svasarfzvedana and the Vedanta
Comparative Assessment 169
idea of svayarrzprakasa, which, as shown earlier, is different from the
Kantian deSCription of it as 'I think'. The themes of time and history, as
they are found in the Western idea of historicity of consciousness-that
gradually came to dominate Western thinking in the nineteenth century-
do not find explicit recognition in Indian thought. However, what has
not been thematized may be discovered in the margins. Theway the
traditional texts and inherited interpretations have been taken over into
philosophical thinking shows that consciousness does not escape history,
even when it does not think of itself as historical.
II
If we look at the conceptions of consciousness dominant in Western
thought since the early decades of the twentieth century, we find
remarkable affinities, as well as differences from, the Indian account of
consciousness.
With the advent of modern phenomenology, several themes with
regard to consciousness came to prominence. First, of course, is the thesis
of intentionality, namely, that consciousness is directed towards some
object or the other. Second, as a consequence of the first, consciousness,
when referring to its object, generates a meaning, which it ascribes to
the object. Carried a step further, it amounts to the thesis that
consciousness is always consciousness of meaning. Third, consciousness
always has an external and an internal horizon. Any object, that it presents,
is located in a field, which in the long run, is the world as the ultimate
horizon for all objects. Fourth, unlike in Kant, there is also a purely
sensuous or hyletic component of consciousness even in the most
intellectual of our thoughts. One need not posit the pure Kantian concepts
and then invoke imagination to temporalize them. Rather consciousness
is always imaginative and temporal. Compared to pure logical thinking,
which is a higher level
l
idealization, this thesis seems like an inversion of
Kantian thesis. Consciousness, though not an explicit 'I think', always
has an implicit self-awareness which one can transform into an explicit
reflection. Irrespective of whether it is reflective or not, all consciousness
is temporal, the 'now' sinking back into the 'no more', and always
anticipating the 'not yet'. The temporality resists a full reflective grasp
by consciousness of itself, so that reflection is aware of its incompleteness
and never rises to the level of Hegelian absolute knowledge.
This entire system of thought as summarized in the above paragraph
has many more dimensions and inner variations;, it is not possible to
discuss all in this short exposition. I shall, however, draw the attention
of my readers to two most influential variations: (1) Merleau-Ponty's
idea of bodily subjectivity preceding and accompanying all intellectual
consciousness, and (2) the emphasis, though sometime carried to an
extreme, on the idea that the temporality of consciousness never permits
consciousness to be presented as a 'now', but always grasped as what is
no more, always anticipating what is not yet. What is thereby pushed to
the forefront is not self-consciousness but rather the trace that is
perpetually being left behind by the vanishing flow of consciousness.
This entire constellation of thoughts seems to have placed Western
philosophy in a terrain that is closer to the Indian thinking. Leaving aside
the extreme Advaita Vedanta purification of consciousness into a mere
principle of manifestation, and consequent reduction of the body to an
object, Indian thinking on consciousness abounds in concerns and
concepts which squarely fall in this terrain. First, consider body. As stated
earlier, while the mainstream darsanas tended to regard the body as a
thing, as an object, in many modes of thinking and highly influential
modes of practice, bodily subjectivity came to the forefront. While a
certain understanding of yogic practice consisted in seemingly
manipulating the body as one manipulates a machine, much of Yoga car a
Buddhism, for example, would remain unintelligible unless one
associates with body its own specific modes of consciousness distributed
over the areas of body in different ways. Body is not merely an instrument
for controlling the mind and focusing the attention; it is in itself, the seat
of consciousness which can be accentuated or intensified by releasing
its potentialities from the clutches of habitual objectification. In this regard,
Sri Aurobindo and Bhattacharyya discover their ideas of bodily
consciousness and bodily subjectivity respectively from within the Indian
traditions. The Buddhists carried it further by holding that each and every
vijfzima has a hyletic component and by not reducing consciousness to
the merely mental. The Buddhist emphasis on traces (sarrzskilras)
inherited from what has ceased to exist and transmitted to what is not
yet, has the potentiality of developing into a rich phenomenology of
experience of time, and only in Buddhism, if not anywhere else, does a
certain grasp ofthe historicity of consciousness tend to emerge.
As regards intentionality, I have already referred to the various forms
in which it appears in Indian thought. Again, Advaita Vedanta stands at
one end, by transferring all objective reference to be a construction of
171
ignorance superimposed upon the pure self, that is, the being of
consciousness. The other schools, especially the realist schools, siJch as
and 11lffiarpsa, clearly recognize the intentionality of
cognitive states, which they construed as consciousness. Pleasure and
pain, desiring and willing, excluded from the scope of consciousness,
were denied their own intentionality, as though a state of pleasure derived
its object only from a prior representation. It is only the BuddhiSts who
recognized pleasure and pain, desires and will, to be the modes of
consciousness having their own intentional structure. However, the
phenomenologists' other thesis that every intentionality is accompanied
by a consciousness of meaning so that all intentional objects are
meaningful objects is difficult to find in Indian thought. It is beyond the
scope of this essay to make use of the Indian theories of meaning in this
context but it may be said that meaning, for all Indian thinkers, with the
exception of the Buddhist theory of meaning, was identical with
reference. Consequently, there was no possibility of letting a layer of
meaning intervene between consciousness and its object. But let us
qUickly note what the Buddhists did in this regard. Leaving out the very
early Sarvastivadins, the Buddhists cast suspicion on words claiming to
be directly referring to objects and did not wish to introduce a positive
meaning entity to mediate, because that would contradict its denial of
abstract entities, and so they construed meanings to be only negations.
According to their well-known theory of apoha, the word' cow' means
neither particular cows nor the universal cowness, but rather mere
exclusion of non-cows. Like the notion of trace, the apoha theory of
meaning gives priority to absence over presence and brings the Buddhists
close to the Derridian 'dijferanz. Nevertheless, unlike the Derridians,
the Buddhist still continues to speak of vijiiapti, that is to say, of
consciousness and cognition. That locution hides the radical nature of
the Buddhist thinking and yet uses conservative or traditional mode of
speech. Each such vijiiapti is different from, that is to say, is separated
by a negation from what precedes and what succeeds. It does not,
therefore, have a positive self-being; its being consists in not being what
it is not. Using a radical mode of speech, one could then say that
consciousness for the Buddhists consists in perpetual self-negation. If
this were the only thing about the Buddhist view of consciousness,
Buddhism could have been a very early anticipation of Derridian thinking.
But this does not tell the whole story; it only provides a partial picture.
There is another aspect of svasarrwedana, which makes each vijiiapti
self-aware while it is on the point of vanishing. How these two aspects
may be kept together has been a problem for the Buddhist psychology,
and also perhaps, for the Buddhist meclitational practices. At various
places, on various occasions, in this book, I have talked about
phenomenology vis-a-vis the Indian theories of consciousness. Before
concluding this section, I would like to make a few remarks to bring
those points together, especially with regard to Advaita Vedanta and
Husserlian phenomenology. Insofar as Advaita Vedanta is concerned,
our comparisons have brought out the following points:
1. For Advaita Vedanta, consciousness is neither intentional nor
ego logical. It is nirv4aya and nirasraya. For Husserl, on the
other ha...'1d, consciousness is intentional and belongs to an ego.
2. For Advaita Vedanta, consciousness is self-luminous and cannot
be made an object without doing violence to its nature .
. Husserlian phenomenology is in this matter ambiguous. On
the one hand, Husserl holds that consciousness can be reflected
upon, and, on the other hand; he also takes it to have a pre-
reflective transparency.
3. For Advaita Vedanta, consciousness is timeless. For Husserl,
consciousness is intrinsically temporal and is often described
by him as a flux.
4. For Advaita Vedanta, the mundane world of objects is
superimposed upon consciousness; for Husserl, consciousness
constitutes the world by conferring meaning upon the empirical
data.
5. For Advaita Vedanta, consciousness is empty of all contents,
nirakara; it is the antaJ?kararJa that assumes the form of the
object. For Husserl, consciousness is content-ful (inhaltich),
concrete at the most basic level, sensible and sensuous, and
always, at any level, including the level of conceptual thinking,
has a hyletic component.
While these five points serve to draw an initial line of comparison
between Advaita Vedanta and Husserl, so far as the nature of
consciousness is concerned, this initial difference is considerably modified
when we delve deeper into the two philosophies. I can only indicate
the direction our final comparison will traverse.
1. Even for Husserl, while the surface level of the acts (such as
believing, perceiving, hoping, and desiring) exhibits
intentionality, the intentional acts are constituted out of a flux
of experience, which is not itself intentional. The hyletic data,
173
the horizonal references, the time-constituting flow, are not
themselves intentional, in the same sense in which the acts
are intentional. Likewise, while an initial description recognizes
that acts belong to an ego, the ego is constituted out of
experiences, habitualities, passive associations which
themselves are not egological.
2. Although phenomenology remains initially a reflective
philosophy, it has to-as a matter of fact it does (as with Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty, and Michel Henry)-succeed in taking hold
of pre-reflective transparence of consciousness.
3. While for Husserl, consciousness is temporal, this temporality
is not to be confused with being-in-time of objective events
and processes. Transcendental consciousness, for Husserl,
disclosed after the mundane world (of outer as well as of inner
events) is bracketed; it is not in time, but rather the origin of
temporality. Though Husserl also describes it as a flux, he also
characterizes it as both streaming and standing. It appears he
was not too far from the Advaita Vedantic idea of the
timelessness of consciousness, from the 'eternal now' of
plotinus.
4. Advaita Vedanta cannot speak of the constitution of meanings.
Indian philosophy does not, in general (with few minor
exceptions), have a theory of meaning as distinguished from
reference. In addition, what constitutes the world is ignorance
or aVidya. I must, however, concede that it is possible to
interpret the doctrine of 'superimposition' as a theory of
constitution. As least such a reading is possible, if not usuaJ.1
5. The Advaitic consciousness has no hyletic component; it is
empty of all contents and it is the mere principle of
manifestation. Husserlian consciousness is much closer to the
Buddhist vijnana, which is also hyletic and yet self-luminous
(svasa'f!'lvedana). In this regard, phenomenology and Yogacara
are in close proximity-both are far removed from Advaita
Vedanta in this regard.
III
In the last few years, there has been a powerful philosophical trend
which may be called physicalism along with many speculations about
where consciousness is to be located in the neuro-physiological system.
Also, there are three very influential points of viewfrom which the idea
of consciousness is now being critiqued. Two of these are philosophical
and the third is scientific. I will begin with the two philosophical criticisms,
and then, briefly assess how Indian tradition might respond to these
modem critics of consciousness.
Heidegger and his followers provide the first one. They argue that
the idea of consciousness is based upon three assumptions. First, the
idea of consciousness is inseparable from the idea of the inner as opposed
to the outer and so tied to the Cartesian duqlism. Second, it is also
connected to the idea of representation, that is, the inner picturing of the
outer world. Third, it is based upon a conception of time as present
while overlooking the importance of the past and the future. Rejecting
these three assumptions of the philosophy of consciousness, Heidegger
suggests the priority of Dasein, that is to say, of human existence as
being in the world instead of being a subject for which the world is an
object. As contrasted with consciousness, which is a subject in whom
the world is pictured, Dasein is tied to its world by' caring' and' concern'.
Dasein's being, unlike consciousness, which is present to itself, rather
consists in being ahead of itself in its projects and in the long run is a
being towards death.
Heidegger's concept of Dasein is true of the empirical human person
involved in the chain of sayt'lsara. He/She is a being who acts, enjoys,
and suffers, and if he/she knows, his/her knowledge is only instrumental
to achieving his/her goal. He/She is not a pure cognitive subject, for he/
she is always interested and always following his/her practical projects.
So far Heidegger gives a good account of the empirical person, although
it is not an exaggeration to say that his account also contains overtones
derived from the Christian theology and the predicament of the twentieth-
century European humankind. In the Indian tradition, however, the
worldly being of the empirical person does not quite displace
consciousness (consciousness both of herself and of her world, which
accompanies all her practical projects). The presence of consciousness
not only allows for the possibility of reflection (e.g., what am I doing or
is it all worth anything?), and of taking distance from one's cares and
concerns, but also suggests a path following which one could proceed
to explore the deeper dimensions of one's being. Consciousness, on the
Indian account, is not merely the inner as opposed to the outer-although
it is that to begin with-but it also becomes the ,stuff of which all things
are made, thereby going beyond the Cartesian dualism.
175
The second philosophical criticism of the idea of consciousness
comes from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who begins with
some of the ideas of Heidegger mentioned above and pursues them to
their utmost limit. By doing this, he may be said to have deconstructed
the idea of consciousness. It is worth noting here that consciousness, as
Heidegger argues, is self-presence: in my consciousness, I am present
to myself. Both the Advaita Vedanta philosophical tradition and Western
phenomenology were committed to such a view of consciousness,
according to which consciousness, at any moment, is fully present to
itself. In Husserl's well-known account of time consciousness,
consciousness is always of a 'now' even when it is a consciousness of
'no longer' and 'not yet'. The total structure is that of the living present
with the now as its core and 'no longer' and 'not yet' at its fringes. The
question arises: does the German word' Augenblick' (blinking of an eye)
or the Indian thinker's use of the word k ~ a r ; a (moment) refer to an
indivisible unit or moment, or does the metaphor also hide not only the
presence of the present but also the absence of the absent? By raising
this sort of questions, Derrida wishes to draw our attention to the fact
that in our search for pure presence, we are after a will-o'-the-wisp,
which we never find and all that we find is absence and the mere trace
of the vanishing present. The idea of pure presence is a metaphysical
thesis, which is often called metaphysics of presence. It seems as though
phenomenological evidence dose not warrant such metaphysics. What
we have at the bottom of things is just the absence, the difference, the
trace, and not identity, self-coincidence, and pure presence. But the
resulting position also may be regarded as metaphysics, albeit, this time
a metaphysics of absence which reifies absence into what Derrida calls
, diJferanz'. The idea of trace, which Derrida uses, he borrows from
Immanuel Levinas. Describing Abraham's seeing of God, Levinas wrote
that he had not seen God's presence, his face, but only his vanishing
back. It seems both Derrida and Levinas wish to avoid an objectification
of the other as weHi as of oneself by banishing 'pure presence'. The
giving of priority to absence, to trace, seems to promise an escape from
such objectification.
I wish to recall for my readers that we had encountered such a notion
of trace and the continual vanishing of the present in the exposition of
Buddhism. However, there are several considerations-both logical and
phenomenological-which should enable us to offer a critique ofDerrida
from the standpoint of Indian tradition. First of all, a trace is the trace of
what was present before and is no more. One cannot simply have traces
of traces of traces without going back to the present to which the series
of traces belong. Derrida recognizes such a search f()r origin, but regards
it as an endless search never to reach its goal. In this sense, he considers
Busserl's ideal of pure evidence unreachable. But this only shows that
at the level of objective cognition, we never reach the sort of givenness
or originary evidence which Busserl was in search of. But at a higher
level, is not Derrida making use of the presence of the series of traces to
consciousness? Is he not basing his thesis upon the failure to find objective
presence, and is not this failure itself presented to consciousness? The
fact that the alleged 'now' is always interpenetrated by the 'just gone'
and the 'not yet', is not this (now-not yet) structure itself, even when it
is vanishing, presented to consciousness as what abides in the midst of
the flux of change? The point that I am trying to make is as follows: just
as there is consciousness of presence, there is also a consciousness of
absence, and a consciousness of their difference; if Derrida' s critique is
not to be arbitrary but rather justified by evidence, or the failure of
evidence, such evidence or failure of it must be presented to conscious-
ness with regard to the objective world, objective knowledge, objective
beliefs. Derrida's critique of the impossibility of complete validation is
justified from the point of view of Advaita. But such justification
presupposes the presence of a witness-consciousness to which all
affirmations as well as negations must be presented and without which
no trace will be presented as a trace.
The scientific criticism is generally levelled from the perspective of
either a physicalist or a biological evolutionist. There are several forms
of physicalism, many of which are well known since ancient times, and
there is no need to go into various varieties of it. For the phYSicalist, the
world is physical and has no place for things or properties, which follow
no known physical laws. The prospects for physicalism today seem to
be much better than before, partly because of the great developments in
science, especially the neuro-sciences. One heartening feature of recent
thought about consciousness is that many scientists and philosophers
today do not simply dismiss consciousness as an epiphenomenon or as
something which can be eliminated; they are looking for the neuro-
basis-for example, of a possible gene-of consciousness. The
evolutionary biologist looks for the evolutionary development of the
human brain, which becomes the seat of consciousness. It is not needed
for my present purposes that I go into these theories in detail. A few
remarks, however, on such scientific criticisms, again from the point of
view of Advaita thinking on consciousness, would not be out of place.
It is not in any straightforward sense that modern physics is
physicalistic. The elementary particles, as understood by quantum
mechanics, are so unlike our ordinary material bodies that it may not be
totally wrong to say that modern physics has led to a 'dematerialization
of matter'. While it may be naive to claim that modern physics
demonstrates the presence of consciousness in all matter in howsoever
small a degree, we can only say this much that the gap between
consciousness and matter is much narrower than ever before. Many
scientists have speculated that if consciousness is to be explained by the
brain sciences, we have to first know more about the quantum mechanical
nature of the brain. But even then the sciences would not show that
matter or the physical structure of the brain produces consciousness, but
all the scientific facts would be compatible with the thesis that physical
structure of the brain is an appropriate medium for the emergence and
manifestation of consciousness in a biological organism.
Among the Indian thinkers, Sri Aurobindo maintained that the
evolution of nature leads to the manifestation of human consciousness
only because consciousness was already implicit in the material nature.
Such a position would be compatible with the Advaita view of things.
The Advaitic standpoint need not deny science, nor does it need to
concern itself with a scientific explanation of consciousness. It, however,
would not allow that physicalism is the only promising interpretation of
science. On the other hand, it would claim that taking all the facts into
account-not only the facts of science but also the facts of the higher
reaches of consciousness-a Vedantic theory of the universality of
consciousness might well claim to be a more satisfactory interpretation.
The same can be said about the evolutionary theory. Evolution does
not explain the emergence of consciousness; it explains-through the
gradual sophistication of human brain-the specifically human form of
consciousness, individualized, capable of strategic thinking for survival.
Here again, this narrowly formulated consciousness in terms of the
survival of the human species is severely restricted to yield a general
theory of the nature df consciousness. It is as if the account of the nature
-of the kerosene lamp and the science that it implies could be used to
understand the nature of the sun from which our planet derives its light.
The Indian philosophers theorized about that original consciousness
which under specific condition of human body becomes a human
consciousness. The Indian philosophers no doubt began with human
consciousness but proceeded to find in it signs of its origin, source, and
true essence which is none other than the universal, all-pervasive,
consciousness.
IV
The task for Indian philosophers is not merely to rethink the traditional
ideas about consciousness, but also to use them to meet contemporary
challenges from psychology, biology, genetics, and physics; it should
attempt to expand its concerns to the domain of social and political life.
I formulate below some of the questions which, I believe, Indian
philosophers should consider.
1. Do the elementary particles of matter, in their unpredictable
behaviour, suggest that they offer a limit to a physicalist
ontology and point towards the primacy of a low-grade
consciousness?
2. Inasmuch as consciousness is not only individual but also
collective, can the Indian tradition accommodate the idea of
the fusion of consciousnesses, which makes possible the
identity of a community or of a political entity?
3. Since the Indian tradition extended its theory of consciousness
into the practical project of transforming one's existence
through yogic and meditative practices, is it possible to further
extend it in the direction of social and collective actions, such
as the movement launched by Gandhi?
4. Sri Aurobindo took the idea of transformation a step furthe:- in
recommending the ideal of collective liberation. What sort of
a theory of consciousness does this entail?
5. In the context of psychology, one must come to grips with the
following question: what modes of trans-personal communi-
cation are available, breaking open the normal boundaries that
circumscribe personal consciousness?
6. What are the implications ofthe Vedantic thesis that citis also
bliss for the way the individual searches for happiness?
7. How are consciousness and the karmic elements transmitted
through birth and death? Can one's birth and death be possible
phenomena for oneself, or are they inherently intersubjective?
Is the foetus in the mother's womb conscious? Such questions
are not new to the Indian tradition, but, now they may be
discussed by philosophers.
In discussing all these questions, is it possible to avoid taking into
account the way the mystic and spiritual experiences in all traditions
179
claim to open the 'doors of perception' and 'dLrnensions of conscious-
ness'? Or, should philosophers restrict themselves to ordinary
consciousness and leave out the extraordinary?
The Indian tradition has not neglected either the ordinary or the
extraordinary;'both Vedanta and Buddhism seem to have found places
for both components in their philosophies, Do the Indian philosophers
of today, in the absence of personal access to the higher reaches of
experience, have the competence to honestly integrate them into their
thinking on consciousness?
It is not possible in this concluding section to undertake a detailed
discussion of the issues the above questions raise. However, I shall
suggest some responses to the questions above in the order in which
they have been raised in the hope that it steers those who are willing to
pursue the ramifications of these questions in the right direction.
1. Yes, they do offer a limit to physicalist ontology. The
elementary particles do not seem to be pieces of matter-they
seem to defy our ordinary concept of material bodies. But at
the same time, one should admit that to go to the opposite
extreme and hold that the elementary particles are conscious
beings or possess consciousness is to make a mistake. No
empirical evidence available points in this direction. The
category which perhaps comes closest to fit their behaviour is
'pratJa' of the rather than' cit'. In the it
is said' sarvam pratJa ejati' (everything throbs with pratJa).
To decide how cit fares in this context requires first deciding
the relation between pratJa and cit and that is something I
cannot do here.
2. It seems to me that from the point of view of karma and rebirth,
the various individual souls and their karmas by their interaction
with each other may be regarded as making possible a
community of humankind as a whole. But poiitics and history
not only reRuire that humankind be an interacting collection
of the embodied souls, but also that there is a possibility of
social groups, like Hindus, Buddhists, Chinese. The formation
of these communities would need more specific principles tl1an
the way karma and rebirth operate. It requires that a common
tradition, religion, or language unite the members, so that there
is a common way oflooking at things, a common set of beliefs.
This makes it imperative that the individual consciousnesses
180
Cit: Consciousness
are not totally, exclusively, individual, that they share some
structures. Western thinking has been very much individualistic.
Consciousness has been regarded as private to each individual,
thereby resulting in raising a host of questions regarding the
possibility of social consciousness. The Indian theories of
consciousness, which have been expounded in this book, do
not restrict consciousness to an individual's mental experience,
but conceive of various levels of consciousness, from the purely
individualized sensory experience through the conceptual
being, that is, the level of buddhi, and the cit as the
metaphysical stuff, of which, according to Advaita Vedanta,
all things are made. When consciousness is understood in this
wide sense, it does not merely serve to separate one individual
from another but also to unite them by making possible not
only unity of humans and nature but also the unity of one
human to another at all different levels.
3. As noted in my answer to questions 2, there are many levels of
consciousness on the Indian account, and the spiritual practices
are designed to help human beings transform the lower levels
of consciousness, for example, the sensuous level, into the
higher level, for example, cit. In the traditional Indian culture,
this transformation of consciousness has been taken to be the
transformation of the individual nature from the sensuous
animal that he is, to begin with, to the spiritual and the moral
person that he has the potentiality to become. However, Indian
culture, in general, did not thematize the possibility of a similar
transformation of society. I think it was taken for granted that
if individuals change for the better, society will change for the
better. But such a conception presupposes that a society is a
collection of its individuals, which has been questioned on
many grounds. The question under consideration is whether
the spiritual transformation of an individual consciousness can
lead to or can be used as a means to transfonn the nature of
society, without making use of the purely individualistic
presupposition just mentioned. I think both Gandhi and the
Buddhist tradition emphasized such a possibility. By purging
consciousness of individualistic defilements such as greed, and
by cultivating such excellences as compassion, one can
transform the basis on which our society could be founded. A
philosophy which regards each individual as an exclusive
domain of private interest cannot have a way to promote
public good except through the use of force. However, if
consciousness, by definition, is not the domain of exclusive
privacy, but rather of shared interests, such a possibility is
perfectly feasible.
4. Sri Aurobindo's theory of collective liberation or, as he calls it,
'the ascent of mankind to a higher evolutionary level', is based
upon two different theories found in the texts of the Vedas
and the Thefirst of these is the conception of citas
force or sakti, which develops and manifests itself through
various stages, both in nature and in human history. The second
theory holds that evolution, whether of nature or of man always
proceeds in three steps: the lower ascends to a higher level,
that ascent in tum making the next step possible, which is the
descent of the higher into the lower; this is followed by the
step in which the higher by descending into the lower
transforms it. Thus, for example, purely inorganic matter
develops enough of complexity (which is ascent) in order to
make possible the descent of life (prii'/'}a) into the material
body. But the descent of prii'/'}a does not leave the matter at
the level it was, but transforms inorganic matter into organic
matter. Sri Aurobindo argues that the same applies to cit
or consciousness. The descent of the higher forms of
consciousness into material framework would end up, he
visualizes, by transforming human body, life, and mind
appropriately. In his view, such a conception of the emergence
of higher levels of cit is dearly anticipated.
5. There is a widespread prejudice among Western philosophers
that any language of consciousness is bound to be Cartesian,
thereby making consciousness accessible only to the ego who
owns it. The other ego, on this account, has no access to one's
consciousness. Such an account makes communication
between the egos at worst impossible, and at best highly
unreliable. Tb account for the possibility of communication,
philosophers have, therefore, appealed to publicly observable
practices, such as language, and have replaced consciousness
by observable behaviour. But with this cure, one also destroys
the patient, or to use another metaphor, throws the baby with
the bath water. In assuming that consciousness is incurably
Cartesian, one overlooks the multifarious ways in which
consciousnesses come into contact with each other, understand
each other, recognize each other, and respond to thoughts
and emotions of others. Body is not simply a container of
consciousness, or even an external sign for internal
consciousness, but carries with it a mode of consciousness
which may be called bodily consciousness. Two bodies attuned
to each other understand each other's desires and aspirations.
The same is true of two living beings. The point that I am
trying to make is that each level of consciousness, bodily,
intellectual, for example, has its mode of communication with
the other. It opens out to the other in its own way without
closing itself into an inaccessible domain. It seems to me that
in Indian philosophy-where cit is an ontological category,
especially in the Vedanta tradition, where cit is the stuff of
which everything is made-the Cartesian idea of consciousness
will be totally rejected. The Vedantic theory is compatible
with-may even be taken to entail-modes of non-sensory,
direct, and immediate contact with other centres of
consciousness. The more one frees oneself from the narrow
limits to which one's egoistic consciousness is seemingly
confined, the more one enjoys one's harmony with other
consciousnesses. At its higher reaches, consciousness is trans-
personal, not egoistic.
6. Egoistic consciousness searches for happiness from things in
the world which, by being acquired or brought under control,
confirm one's sense of 'I'. To confirm one's sense of ego is to
strengthen one's 'power' and to increase the 'pleasure' which
one derives from things of the world. Little does one realize
that this pursuit of 'power' and' pleasure' eventually turns back
upon itself, leading to 'powerlessness' and 'pain'. The things
which were acquired to give one power end up by controlling
one, leaving one powerless. Likewise, what filled the ego with
pleasure ends up by being a source of pain, which is Lao-
Tzu's eternal return. The Vedantin, therefore, searches for
happiness within one's consciousness, not in the objects of
consciousness. But this consciousness in which the Vedantin
seeks happiness is not the narrow egoistic consciousness, but
that vast, expansive, universal consciousness, which 'finds itself
in others and others in itself'. Cultivation of this universality,
or rather realization of it, requires breaking down the barriers
that separate an ego from other egos, 'nUne' from 'yours', 'my
Cpmparative Assessment 183
happiness' from 'their happiness'. The person who achieves
this Vedantic goal experiences tme bliss within herself.
7. This is the most difficult of all the questions asked here. For,
any attempt to answer this question would have to establish
an intelligible link between the two domains: the karmic and
the naturalistic. None of the theories in Indian philosophy has
adequately discussed this large issue, save possibly the
Buddhist. In their detailed discussions of the twelve-membered
chain of dependent origination, the Buddhists not only saw
the problem, they sought to throw some light on it. In their
analysis, the twelve-membered chain that encompasses this
life, goes back to the previous life/death, and the embryonic
consciousness in which the karmic elements are latently
present. But how is this done?
The question has two parts: a general question as to how
consciousness is transmitted, and a more specific question as
to what are the karmic elements. The way the parents' egg
and sperm get together resulting in the conception that takes
place must be a part of the process. The way the genes of the
parents, and their DNA, are transmitted is also part of the micro-
process. One believes, one therewith understands how
character traits, cognitive abilities, and physiological features
are transmitted. If one understands these, one must understand
how consciousness is transmitted. The foetus must have latent
consciousness, to be actualized with the developmental
process. While the transmission of consciousness must be at
this level, the transmission of the karmic elements will require
a different level of conceptualization. For, if it were the karmic
elements of the two parents whose transmission is the question
at issue, we could have had a part of the story with that account
of genetic inheritance. But the soul which is being reborn as
the foetus had
l
different karmic elements, and we are left with
the puzzle about how the karmic elements of X could be
transmitted to the foetus Y, when the parents A and B produce
Y. Did then the karmic elements of X enter into the parent's
egg and sperm ab extra? Or, should we rather say that a foetus
Y, which is to incorporate the karmic elements of X (so that
we could say Y is but X reborn) required that Y be born from
precisely these two parents A and B? The story gets muddled,
and we realize that we need a science-and not mere
184
Notes
Cit: Consciousness
conceptual clarity-which connects two different ontological
levels. And our knowledge ofthis is farJoo limited. To extend
the story a little further: if X' s karma required that Y be born of
A and B, the karmas of A and B also require that their foetus Y
(which not only must be inheriting some of their karmas) must
be identical with X qua reborn (and so must inherit X' s karmic
elements, in addition). One may also go ahead and maintain
that the fact that Y is born in a specific cultural community
with specific traditions, and with specific intellectual and moral
predilections, be rooted as much in the genetic inheritances
from A and B as in the karmic inheritances from A, B, and X.
Does such a story suggest that a purely individualized notion
of karma must be inadequate, that karmas must affect groups,
and collective entities, and in the long run the entire domain
of humankind, possibly of living beings? This is a field in which
there is scope for further research, and for speculative
construction of a system that satisfactorily combines Vedanta
with the eschatological ideas of karma, rebirth and mokl?a.
1. Anindita Niyogi Balslev, 'Analysis ofI-Consciousness in the Transcen-
dental Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy' in D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Lester
Embree and ].N. Mohanty (eds) Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy (New
Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1992), pp. 133-40.
Abbreviations
AS Advaitasiddhi. New Delhi: Parimal Publications.
BP Bhi4a-Pariccheda with Siddhanta-Muktavali. Advaita
Ashram edition.
BSBh
BU
CU
MAU
MU
NS.
PPV
SB
SLS
Sveta
TS
TSD
TSDNB
TP
TV
Upadesa
Brahma-Sutra-Bhi4ya of Sri Satikaracarya
Brhadarar;,yaka Upan4ad
Chandogya Upan4ad
Ma1';4ukya Upan4ad
Murpjaka Upan4ad
Nyaya Sutras
Pancapadikavivara1'}a. Madras Government Manu-
scripts Library edition.
Siddhantabindu of Madhusudana with the Commen-
tary of Purushottama. Gaekward Oriental edition.
Siddhantalesasangraha. Madras University Series
edition.
Svetasvatara Upan4ad
Trirrzika
Tarka-6arrzgraha of Annarrtbhatra with D'ip'ika.
Calaitta: Progressive Publishers.
Tarka-Sarrzgraha of AnnarrzbhaHa with Dtp'ika and
Govardhana's NyayarBodhin'i. Bombay Sanskrit and
Prakrit Series edition.
Tattvaprad'ipika
Tattiiiya p a n i ~ a d
Upadesasahasii
186
VP
VPS
vv
Cit: Consciousness
Vedanta a r i b h a ~ a
Vivarar;aprameyasarrtgraha. Kumbakonam edition.
Virrtsatika
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Index
aMdbitatva 95--6
Abbidbarma 81, 90n, 92n
Abbidbarmakosa 71, 72, 81
Abhinavagupta 3, 129, 140, 163n
philosophy of consciousness of
4 .
on theory of consciousness 10,
13n,14n
'Absolute' 154-5
alternative paths to 129
concept of 164n
Spirit 168
as trutp.s/freedom 155
adbipati pmtyaya 81,82
Advaita Vedanta (school) 12, 13,
31,32,34,35,43,139,168,170,
180
on atman and consciousness 53
on origin of knowledge and
consciousness 99
subjectivist-transcendental
theory of 10, 94-130
theory of, consciousness 3, 11,
50, 101-3, 167
as all-pervading 116-17
and Hussed on consciousness
172-3
and Naiyayaka account of
consciousness 48
as the only reality 83, 114
as self-luminous 51
transformation of 139--62
Vivara1).a interpretation of 94
aesthetic consciousness 129
abarr-kara 98
Aitareya Upani$ad 14n, 33
Ajatasatru 17-18, 19, 24
Alambana-Parik$a 91n
alambana pratyaya 73, 81, 82
alaya 3,86-8
alaya-vijnana (warehouse
consciousness) 67, 75--81, 85, 88,
92n
and unconscious of Abhidharma
91n
ananda, consciousness as 123,
125-30
Annarpbhana 60n
antaqkarat:za (inner sense) 5
and manas 131n
Antaqkarar;av,rtti 108
n u ~ v s y 48, 57,63n, 110
theory of 59
aparok$atva 95--6
apoba, Buddhist theory of 171
ap,rthak-siddhi 53
Aquinas 30,37n
Asanga 66, 72, 76
asatkiiryavada 133n
asraya 9
asraya-prav,-tti 80
Atharva Veda 36n
, atigbn'f, self and 19
atman (inner self) 40, 75, 94-5,
123
-brahman 113
or consciousness,
characterization of 25
relation with 53
experience of 2, 24
nature of 16-17
Nyaya-Vaise"ikaviewof 55
Augustine, Saint 1
Aum 22
Aurobindo, Sri 3, 4, 14n, 122, 139-
48, 161, 162, 167, 170, 177, 181
experience of overmental
descent by 146
theory of involution/evolution of
140
'avidya' (ignorance) 110, 113,
121, 122, 136n, 160
concept of 117, 118
knowledge of 115
superimposition on Brahman
115
aVidyavrtti 106
see also nescience
'Badha' 64n
Balslev, Anindita Niyogi 184n
being, and consciousness 102-3
and unconsciousness, Advaita
view of 115
Bhagavad Gita 14n, 32, 94
Bhamati school 130n, 131n, 137
Bhana, Jayarasi 62n
Bhana MImarp.sa (school) 46, 60n
on consciousness 49-50
theory of error of 62-3nn
Bhattacharya, Gopinath 149, 150,
151, 164n
Bhattacharya, K.c. 37n, 127, 129,
138n, 148-56, 161, 162, 164n, 170
bliss 123, 125, 126
see also ananda
bodily consciousness 161-2,170,
182
bodily subjectivity 148, 149, 152,
153, 155, 170
'brahman' 2, 123
as consciousness 114
in transcendent and immanent
139
in the Upani"ads 16, 94-5
Brahmasutras 85, 94, 104, 157
Brentano, Franz 130n, 131n, 156,
157
Brereton, Joel 37n
Brhadara1J-yaka Upani$ad 13n,
17,18,24,29,30,33,34
Buber, Martin 156
'buddhi' 5, 43-4, 98, 105, 131-
2nn, 180
Buddhism/BuddhistCs) 8
and non-attachment 3
theory of consciousness 3, 52,
66, 168, 171
and Advaita Vedanta on
consciousness 119
on nature and consciousness
121-2
caitanya 4, 6
Cartesian tradition, on
consciousness 95-{5, 182
Carvaka school 10,61n
on consciousness 41,42
empirical theory of
consciousness 55
causality, doctrine of 68
ChZmdogya Upani$ad 17,21,24,
29, 33
nature of atman in 19
Chattopadhyaya, D.P. 184n
cit (consciousness) 2,98,105, 123
and atman 5, 16
and energy (sakti) 4
as force 181
Index
197
and knowledge 101
cit-sakti 122
. Citsukha 133n, 134n
, citta' 92n .
cittatrt satrtkalpaf,J and 33
cognition/cognitive states 45-6,
48,49,86,73,171
direct and indirect 112
as fonnless 56-7
is 119
Naiyayikas on 50
Prabhakara M"lffiarp.sa on 51
collective liberation, theory of 181
The Concept of Intentionality 156,
159, 161
consciousness, as an act 47,99
is all-pervading, Advaita on 116
as attribute of the self 43
and awareness 160-1
as basic to experience 74
beginnings in the
15-35
in the Brahman 140-1
early Buddhist theory of 67,
68-71
concept of 5-6,29,123,166
conditioning of 69-71,107,108
and contents 172
eight kinds of 80
empirical features of 9
'as essence of self' 100, 101
as fonnless 45, 55, 56, 83, 120
four states of 22-3/
as gur;a 47
idea of 174-5
and ignorance of 121
in Indian philosophy/theories
2-4, 179-80
intentionality of 156, 157
and knowledge 5
levels of 148, 149, 180
and mind 98, 148
in modern physics 177
nature and function of 1,8-9,
124, 172
notion of 4, 11
and relation with objects 128,
168, 169, 172
objectivist theory of 9-10
as a quality 47,55
as sakara 83
self-luminous character of 51-
3,55,99,101,119,1340,172
states of 7-8, 17, 34, 59
subjectivist theory of 9-10
is svasatrtvedana 85
consciousness, ....
trans dental features of 9
transformation of 75, 139, 183
and transformation of society
180
concept of 11
Dasein, concept of 174
deep sleep, consciousness in 18-
19
phenomenon of 28
state of 17,24,27, 133n
dependent, doctrine of 68-9
Derrida,]acques 87,171,175,176
Descartes 11,30,95
'desire' 126
and 'craving', freedom from 3
Deussen BIn
Deutsch; Eliot 64n, 65n
71, 72, 75, 90n
Dignaga 74,91n
dream/dreaming, consciousness,
and self-consciousness 149
state, of consciousness
34, 149-51
stages of 149
dreamless sleep (sU$/Jtt)
state of consciousness
17,27,
149, 151
34
198 Cit:. Consciousness
ecstasy, state of 151"':2
egoistic consciousness 182
empirical consciousness 52, 55,
159-60
and transcendental
consciousness 167
epistemology, and metaphysics
115-16
theory of 46
Western 47
evolutionary process/theory 142,
144, 148, 177
existence, of external world,
Yogiicara concept of 74-5
freedom, concept of 127
Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary
and the Involuntary 157
Freud 157, 159
Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on
Interpretation 157
Gandhi, Mahatma 180
Gaurj,apada Karika, on tur'iya 35,
37n
Gaiigesa 60n
Giirgya 17-18
Gautama 60n, 63n
Gautama Buddha, on pleasure 124
Gita 94
Got<tma, founder of Nyiiya school
40
u ~ 54,61n, 132
Gupta, Bina 9, 37n, 54, 165n
Hacker, Paul 137n
Hainlin, Edward 92n
happiness 123-6
Hegel 11, 167, 168, 169
. Heidegger 11,32,156,174,175
Henry, Michel 161, 165n, 173
Hetu pratyaya (primary causal
condition) 81
Hiriyanna, Mysore 37n
Hoernle, R.F. 131n
Husserl 11, 12: 59,88,96, 130n,
156, 157, 159, 160, 166, 175, 176
Advaita Vedanta and
phenomenology of 172-3
phenomenology theory of 83
'hyle' 160
'I'-consciousness 16,69,78,100
ignorance 137n
consciousness and 121
as positive 11 0
immortal self, knowledge of' 21
'indriya' 131n
inherence (samavaya) 60-1nn
Integral Advaita 139
intentionality, concept of 156,
170-1.
'degrees' of 159
reflexivity and 158-9, 161
in Western tradition 6
intentional consciousness 80, 127-
8, 158
intuition, Aurobindo on power of
145
involution, order of 141-2
ISvara 144
Janaka,king 18,27,30
Jayanta 60n
jiva, and Brahman 160
jnana 4, 5, 43-4
Jiianaghanapiida 64, 65n
Kalupahana, David]. 92n
Kane, P.V. 60n
Kant, E. 5, 10, 151, 159, 167, 169
karma 15
andrebirth 88,179
karmic elements, transmission of
183-4
Index
199
(compassion) 3
KashmIr Saivism 10, 13n, 14n, 122,
140, 147, 162n
Katyayana 68
KaWfttaka Upan4ad 14n
Kena Upan4ad 134n
Kinship 160
knowledge 43, 126
and consciousness
'knowness', property of
Kumarila 60n
101
99-100
123
Lankavatara-Sutra 76, 91n, 92n
Lao-Tzu 182
Levinas, Immanuel 175
The Life Divine 139,140
light, use of metaphor of, to
consciousness 29-32
Madhusudana SarasvatI 135n,
136n
Madhyamika Buddhism 66
Mahathera, Nyanatiloka 92n
Mahayana Buddhist school 66
manas 5,40, 89-90nn, 98
-consciousness 79
see also mind
Mal).Qanamisra BOn
Upan4ad 13n, 17,24,
29, 34
on states of self 22-3
manonama-vifiiana (consciousness
called mind) 67, 75-8, 81
and manas 79
materialism, Advaita Vedanta, on
consciousness 117-19
Mayeda 131n
meditatiom 80
mental states, Upani1?ads on 33
Merleau-Ponty 138n, 157, 170, 173
metaphysics 121
and epistemology 115-16
of presence 175
Middle Way, Buddha's doctrine of
68
M"unaqlsa (school) 10, 39, 122, 171
on form to consciousness 44-5
on consciousness and its objects
168
meaning of 60n
34 mind, as distinct from cit
consciousness and 98
movements of, higher 144
illumined 144-5, 146
intuitive 144, 145
over 144, 145-6, 148
status of BIn
supermind 145, 148
Mohanty, J,N. 37n, 62n, 65n, 136n,
156-61, 164n, 165n
mok1?a, achievement of 40
monism 11&-19
mftlavidya 115
mystic experience 129
Naiyayikas, on cit 5
on perception as cognition 63n
state of consciousness in 50
nature, and consciousness 121-2
three of 98
Navya-Nyaya 60n
nescience 111
derivative and primal 136-7nn
nirakara 44, 172
nirasraya 172n
nirval).a, Buddhist vision of 87
nirv4aya 172
nivrtti (path of non-action) 2'
Nyaya, concept of consciousness
11
on self-luminosity of consciousness
53
Nyaya-Siitras 60n
200
Cit: Consciousness
8, 10,
85, 122, 171
atmanin 40
doctrine of categories 54
objectivist theory of .39-60
theory of consciousness 39-60,
168
objectivist theory, of Nyaya-
39-60
Padmapada 130n
Parama Siva 162n,163n
Paramartha 90n
paraprakasa 9
paratantra- 67
parikalpita 67
Parikh, Rasiklal 62n
'parir:zama' 92n
parir:zarrwada 137n
parin4panna 67
Patthanas 92n
perception, definition of 73
process of visual 108-9
phenomenology 152, 156, 173
and Indian theories of
consciousness 172
and metaphysics 161
modern 167
Western 159
Phenomenology 168
physicalism 173, 176, 177
Picocur 157
Plato 30
pleasure (sukha) 123, 124
and pain 125, 126
Poussin, Louis de La Vallee 90n,
92n
Pdbhakara MImarpsa (school)
60n,134n
on cognition 51, 52
consciousness of 49, 50
self-luminous consciousness of
51
Prajapati 21-2
prajiia 29
state of consciousness 22
state of dreamless sleep 23
prakarata, cognition with 57
prakrti 36
superimposition on Brahman
115
prama 133n
pramar:zas 111, 133n
'pramajiiana' 101
pramar:zaSastra 5
prar:za 26
and cit 179
133n
pratyaksatva 95-6
pratitya-samutapada 68
'pratyaya' 81
pravrtti (path of action) 2
pravrtii-vijiiana (active
consciousness) 75, 78
'pretyabhava' 40
Pruden, Leo M. 90n
psychic subjectivity 152, 153
pure consciousness
(Suddhacaitanya) 52, 106-7, 120,
123, 134n
and vrtti 113
84
quantum physics, and Advaita thesis
4
Radhakrishnan, E.P. 64n
rajasika 32
Ramanuja 10, 14n, 64n, 158
on consciousness 51-3
school of 32
Ranade, R.D. C 38n
reflective consciousness 154
Index
201
and content 154, 164n
reflectivity of consciousness,
concept of 157
degrees of. 159
and intentionality 158-9, 161
Ricoeur, Paul 165n
rituals 3
rites and, ethics of 2
Ryle, Gilbert 30, 32, 37n
saccidananda 147
sacrifices, ritual of 2
Saghavi, Sukhalalji 62n
Saivism, of Abhinavagupta 4
on elements of universe 163n
sakara theory 44, 120
Saksena, S.K. 62n
s a k ~ i n in Advaita Vedanta 105,
106, 110, 134n
Sakti 140, 144, 162-3nn, 181
samadhi, ecstatic consciousness of
151
samanantara 82
samanantar patyaya 81, 82
samatva 3
samavaya (inherence) 53, 133n
Sarrtdhinirmocana-Satra 76
SarrtkalpaJ?, and cittarrt 33
Sa:rp.kara . 14n, 29, 35, 37n, 38n, 51,
53, 54, 65n, 94, 104, 130-4nn, 137n,
140, 156, 160, 161
Advaita of 4
rejection of vision of Advaita
of 139
on the existence of external
objects 83-0
theory of consciousness of 13n
Sa:rp.khya (school) 43
on cit 34
theory of consciousness 166
on origin of world 137n
Samkhya-Yoga, subjectivist-
transcendental 10
samprasanna 19
sa:rp.sara 104
nature of 69
sarrtsargata, cognition with 57
Sanskrit, literature, light of
consciousness in 31
terms, on notion of
consciousness 4
Sartre 153, 173
SarvajiUtma 130n
Satkaryavada 139
Sattvika 32
Sautrantika Buddhism 66
on consciousness 84
self, as eternal 43
experienced in deep sleep is
atrnan 22
identical with consciousness,
Advaitins on 100-1
notion of 34
twenty-four gU1Jas of 41
self-consciousness 3, 6, 167, 168
different states of 18
dreams 151
self-luminosity, consciousness and
6-7
sexuality, concept of 128
Shastri, S.N. 62n
Shorey, Paul 37n
Singh, Jaidev 162n
Sittlich keit 3
Siva 140
Siva tattva 163n
skandhas (aggregates),
consciousness and the 70-1
spiritual monism 118, 119
Sthiramati 78
Strason, P.F. 95, 130n
Studies in Philosophy 149
202
Cit: Consciousness
Studies in Vedimtism 149
The Subject as Freedom 149, 152
subjectivist-objectivist theory, of
Yogacara Buddhism 66-89
subjectivist -transcendental theory,
of Advaita Vedanta 94-130
suddbacaitanya (pure
consciousness) 83, 113, 123
sunyata (emptiness), notion of 67
supermind, and mind, Aurobindo
on 143-4
'superimposition', doctrine of 173
supra-mental consciousness 144,
146
supra-reflective consciousness 155
Suresvara 130n, 137n
Suryanarayana, S.S. 64n
Suzuki, D.T. 91n
svaprakasa 9
svaprakasatva 157
svaritpa jnana 106
svasarrzvedana 81,89, 168, 171
Svetaketu 19-21
Svetasvatra Upani$ad 36n
Svayarrzprakasa ( self-shining),
consciousness as 89, 119, 169
tactual consciousness 83
'tadatmya'(identity) 54, 100
taijasa, state of consciousness 22,
23
Takakusu, ]unjiro 64n, 90n
tamasika 32
Tatbagata-garbba 80
TattvaSuddbi 64n,65n
Tattvopaplavasirrzba 62n
Thera, Narad Maha 92n
theory of evolution, spiritual, of
Aurobindo 140, 146, 147
Theravada Buddhism 66
Thibaut, George 65n
Thirty Verses (see TrirrzSika) 66, 67
time, consciousness and 3, 175
transcendental consciousness
159-60, 166, 173
and empirical consciousness
167
Trika-Sastra (Kashmir Saivism)
162n
TrirrzSika 72, 75
turiya state, of consciousness 17,
28, 29, 34, 35, 124, 149, 152
Twenty Verses (see VirrzSatika) 66,
67, 72
Udayana 48, 60n
Udayanacarya 63n
Uddalaka 19-21, 24
Uddyotkara 60n
Ultimate Reality 162n, 163n
upalabdbi 43-4
Upani"ads 11, 94, 179, 181
on consciousness 4-5, 11, 15-
35
role of cit in, 2
Vacaspati 48,60n, 130n, 137n
Vaibha"ika Buddhism 66, 71
on consciousness 84
Vaise"ika, on cognition as a
consciousness 83
theory of samavaya 100
van:za 3
Vasubandhu 34, 66, 67, 71-6, 78,
79, 90n
conversion to Mahayana
Buddhism by 72
vastu, and v4aya 46
Vatsyayana 40, 60n, 61n
Vedanta (schools) 3, 8, 60n
theory of consciousness 94,
166, 182
Vedanta Parib,bil$a 107, 132n
Vedas 2, 181
Index
203
vijiiima (consciousness) 4, 5, 68,
69,83,85,86, 90n, 120, 170, 173
vijiiima-parit;tama 75
VijiianavadaNijiianavadin
Buddhists 34, 67
on consciousness 85
vijiiapti 81,82,171
Virrzsatika (Twenty Verses) 72
viparita-kbyati 62n
v i ~ y t 50
cognition with 57
Visii?tadvaita, on consciousness 49,
50
origin of 64n
viSva, state of consciousness 22-3
Vivarar.ta (school) 113, 130n, 131n,
133n,137n
Vivartavada 137n
vrtti (inner sense), 105, 107-13,
119, 135n, 136n
and vijiiana 120
v.rttijfiana 106
v.rtti svasarrzvedana, of Advaitin
120
vyapara 49
vyavasaya (primary cognition)
109
waking, experiences 150, 151
state, 17, 27
of consciousness 34, 162
Warren, Henry Clark 89n
WestlWestern, concept of
consciousness 11, 30, 166, 167,
169
epistemological theories 45
witness-consciousness 108,--109,
111-13, 117-19, 133n
Wood, Thomas E. 91n
Yajiiavalkya, sage, 19, 24, 27, 28,
30 '
yoga 33
Yoga school, on Buddhism 34
Yogacara Buddhism 3,170,173
on cognition 50
concept/theory of consciousness
11, 44, 67, 71-81
objectivist and subjectivist theory
of 10, 11, 66-89, 122
Yoglndrananda 133n
Zen Buddhism 66

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What are the main objectives of the Foundations of Philosophy in India series?

What are some of the major philosophical theories discussed in the book regarding consciousness?

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FOUNDATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY IN INDIA

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