Mirror of Nature, Mirror of Self by Dimitry Shevchenko

Author:Dimitry Shevchenko
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The identity perceived between one’s face and its reflected image in the mirror is the result of mutual superimposition of the properties of the face and the properties of the mirror. Similarly, the identity between the knower (pure consciousness) and the locus of cognitive activity (the intellect) is the result of the false superimposition of the properties of each entity upon the other.

While Vācaspati’s theory of reflection in Sāṃkhya and Yoga has been influenced by that of Śaṅkara, it is also obvious that Śaṅkara had as his sources either Vindhyavāsin’s reflection theory, or Bhartṛhari’s reflection theory, or both. The Upadeśasāhasrī version of the reflection theory is hardly non-dualist, insofar as it aims at explaining how the self and the intellect—ontologically distinct entities—interact and transfer their properties to each other. One important difference, however, between Sāṃkhya-Yoga and Śaṅkara is that in the former, both the self and the intellect are real, and for the latter only the self is real. The intellect, being a manifestation of ignorance (avidyā), has an ontologically indeterminate status (anirvacanīya), and the reflection of the self must be unreal (Upad 1.18.87).

What does this mean for the self to be reflected in the intellect in the form of the “I-notion?” How does consciousness, along with its mental representation, appear in our mind? In the Upad, Śaṅkara presents a well-developed theory of self-ideation, which involves cognitive and semantic aspects. The real prototype of our idea of a self is the pure consciousness directly perceived as the subject of experience. In several of his writings, Śaṅkara attempts to prove the existence of a self in the ways reminiscent of Descartes’s cogito argument: “the interior self is well known to exist on account of its immediate (intuitive) presentation” (Thibaut 1980:I.5).16 “The witnessing self is self-proved and cannot be denied” (Thibaut 1980:I.423–424).17 “An adventitious thing, indeed, may be refuted, but not that which is the essential nature (of him who attempts the refutation); for it is the essential nature of him who refutes. The heat of a fire is not refuted (i.e., sublated) by the fire itself” (Thibaut 1980:II.14).18 In the PrUBh 6.2., Śaṅkara argues against the “nihilist” (vaināśika)19 position, according to which the rejection of objects of knowledge as existing in reality implies also the rejection of the act of knowledge, which depends on its objects. Śaṅkara, who holds that consciousness is identical with knowledge and independent from the objects of cognition, raises a question: by which means can the nonexistence of knowledge be known? The nihilist position is self-contradictory as one may not know the absence of knowledge. In other words, the cognizing self must be present in every act of cognition, even if this act is aimed at rejecting the possibility of cognition. It should be noted, however, that as opposed to Descartes, Śaṅkara does not identify the self with the cognitive contents or cognitive activity (thinking), which are attributed to the material mental faculty. The self, just like in Sāṃkhya and Yoga, is pure consciousness devoid of intentionality.

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