[Advaita-l] Difficulty with Akhandakara Vrtti

[H S Chandramouli]

Dear Sri Anand Ji ,


 Reg << "This is that Devadatta", "You are That", etc. >> ,


 should not the complete statement of the knowledge be of the form << I
recognize This is that Devadatta . I recognize You are That etc >> . I feel
the determinate and indeterminate nature mentioned by you refers to the
Vishaya only and not to the complete understanding. The issue under
discussion is whether such knowledge ( determinate or indeterminate )
includes all three components “ I “ ( pramatru ) , “ recognize “ ( pramana
) and “ this is that Devadatta “ ( prameya ) or not . In my understanding ,
it does. Kindly clarify.


 Regards

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:06 PM, Anand Hudli via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> The tarka saMgraha defines savikalpaka (determinate) and nirvikalpaka
> (indeterminate) jnAna (cognition) thus: tatra niShprakArakaM jnAnaM
> nirvikalpakam| saprakArakaM jnAnaM savikalpakam. An indeterminate cognition
> is one without an attribute (or adjunct). A determinate cognition is one
> with an attribute (or adjunct). Any savikalpaka-GYAna can be broken down
> into three components, as per nyAya. Or more precisely, any
> savikalpaka-GYAna has an objective content (viShaya) consisting of 1) a
> visheShya or qualificand, 2) a visheShaNa (also prakAra), ie. a qualifier,
> and 3) a saMsarga or relation between the qualificand and qualifier. This
> also corresponds roughly to the subject-predicate form of a sentence in
> natural language. Consider the Sanskrit sentence "nIlo ghaTaH" (the pot is
> blue.) Here the visheShya is "pot", the visheShaNa is "nIla" and the
> relation between them is that of inherence of blue color in the pot. Such a
> relation is called "samavAya" in nyAya. The naiyAyikas (logicians) hold
> that the qualificand, the qualifier, and even the relation between them is
> presented in an undifferentiated form in a nirvikalpaka cognition.
> JayantabhaTTa, in his nyAyamanjarI remarks that whatever reality is
> presented in a savikalpaka cognition is also presented in a nirvikalpaka
> one, the difference being that the nirvikalpaka cognition cannot be
> expressed in words, unlike the savikalpaka cognition which can. "tasmAd ya
> eva vastvAtmA savikalpasya gocaraH sa eva nirvikalpasya
> shabdollekhavivarjitaH". Later logicians of the navya nyAya school, led by
> ga~ngesha, further reduce the importance of the nirvikalpaka cognition to
> being a mere supplier of the ingredients (qualificand, qualifier, and the
> relation) to the savikalpaka cognition. In the logician's hands, the
> nirvikalpaka cognition is "raw perception", such as for example, the
> perception of a cow for the very first time by a child. In other words, a
> nirvikalpaka cognition does not involve any *concept*, while the
> savikalpaka cognition is said to involve concepts.
>
> While advaitins have no great objection to the way the savikalpaka
> cognition is described by the logicians, there is a crucial difference
> between the two groups in the way the nirvikaplaka cognition is defined.
> For example, the vedAnta paribhAShA says: tacca pratyakShaM dvividhaM
> savikalpakanirvikalpakabhedAt| tatra savikalpakaM vaishiShTyAvagAhi jnAnaM,
> yathA "ghaTamahaM jAnAmi" ityAdi jnAnam| nirvikalpakaM tu saMsargAnavagAhi
> jnAnaM, yathA "so.ayam devadattaH", "tat tvamasi" ityAdivAkyajanyaM jnAnam|
>
> Perception is of two kinds - determinate and indeterminate. The determinate
> is the cognition which involves apprehending relatedness, as for example
> the cognition "I cognize a pot". The indeterminate, however, is the
> cognition which does not involve apprehending any relation, such as, for
> example, the cognition produced by the statements, "This is that
> Devadatta", "You are That", etc.
>
> So nirvikalpaka jnAna is not mere "raw perception", despite its not
> involving comprehending any relation. The reason is quite simple. A
> savikalpaka cognition may be expressed as aRb where two things a and b are
> related by a relation R. However, the nirvikalpaka cognition cannot be
> expressed in the form aRb. Why? aRb implies a duality, between two things a
> and b. The advaitin is unwilling to accept even the simple identity
> relation (tAdAtmya) in a nirvikalpaka cognition, as the laghuchandrikA
> states -  yatra tAdAtmyaM na sambhavati tatra akhaNDArthatvAt,
> jIvatveshatvopahitayoH tAdAtmya-asambhavAt akhaNDArthatvam.
>
> Taking the example of "this is that Devadatta", the Devadatta seen earlier
> may have had a different appearance from the Devadatta seen presently.
> However, by discarding the contradicting features of the Devadatta seen
> earlier and the Devadatta seen now (jahadajahallakShaNa), one may arrive at
> the conclusion "This is that Devadatta." The relation is not technically
> identity (tAdAtmya), but svarUpa-abheda, the natural non-difference between
> the Devadatta seen earlier and now. The same process is briefly described
> in the samkShepa shArIraka I.196-197. As CitsukhAchArya says:
> saMsargAsa~ngisamyagdhIhetutA yA girAmiyam uktAkhaNDArthatA, the capacity
> of the words to produce a valid cognition not involving a relation is said
> to be the property of impartite sense (of the words).
>
> Finally, the dvaitins hold that all perception is determinate only. As BNK
> Sharma says, "all Pratyaksha is considered to be fundamentally Savikalpaka
> or determinate in origin and nature..." (Philosophy of Madhvacharya, page
> 144).
>
> Anand
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