Consciousness and Ontology in Indian Philosophies

Indian and western philosophies distinctly differ on many issues. Fundamentally, Consciousness (also known as the Self, Puruṣa, Cognizer) is primary in Indian traditions; it is secondary to matter in western traditions. Consciousness does not include a deep sleep state in western definitions. In Indian traditions, the three brain states are the awake state, the dream state, and the deep sleep state, and ‘Consciousness’ is transcendental to all three. Mind and matter are different from this Consciousness.

Indian philosophy makes a clear distinction between the Self and mind-matter as two distinct identities. Mind and matter belong to the same category. In Indian traditions, the category of the cognizer is the Self (or Puruṣa), whose characteristic feature is consciousness. Hence, Self, consciousness, cognizer, and Purusha belong to the same category of sentience. Mind-matter, also known as prakṛti and always insentient (inert or having jaḍatva), belongs to the distinct category of the cognized.

Mind and matter are the two modes in which objects of cognition appear, revealing legitimate objective reality.

In Indian tradition, the nature of an object never changes. When the circular shape of a coin changes to a square one, the law of identity (a thing as itself) stays constant, but it is “time” that presents the dynamism and change. Thus, Bhartṛhari’s Vākypadīyam says that the creative power of Reality is Time.

Unlike the western notions of an unknowable noumenon (original), where the perceived world loses its intrinsic character; in Indian philosophy, the term ‘unknowable object’ is devoid of reference (vikalpa), and is an illegitimate verbal construction (like the son of a barren woman). In Indian traditions, a conceived object cannot be unknowable, and if it is unknowable, there is no conceiving.

In this overarching principle, where the perceived world is independent of the mind, we return to the one world that we all experience and live in.

Indian Approach to Ontology: Contact Theory of Perception and Natural Realism

What is the ‘nature of the world’ as it appears through the theories of science? Śrī Chittaranjan Naik elaborates on the Indian idea of perception in his book Natural Realism and the Contact Theory of Perception. Firstly, there is no distinct thing in science called ‘the seer.’ Secondly, science postulates an elaborate mechanism from the object to the brain by which perceptions of objects occur.

As seen earlier, the very nature of this postulated mechanism makes the things seen in the nature of images, not the objects themselves. There are philosophers who stick to the representation of the world as images in the brain and yet hold that this is the true and actual world as it is. These are the Naïve Realists. And the philosophy that holds the perceived world to be the real world is ‘Naïve Realism.’

All traditional darśanas begin with an explanation of the pramāṇas. A pramāṇa is a means of obtaining knowledge about an object. The object known by means of a pramāṇa is called the prameya. Knowledge of the object is called prama. There are three basic pramāṇas (and three secondary ones which we shall see later) in traditional Indian philosophy. They are āgama (scripture), pratyakṣa (perception), and anumāna (inference).

Prama, or knowledge of an object, is not a distinct entity that stands between the subject and the object. It is a qualification of the subject, the knower. Now, there is a distinct mark of the prameya, or object, in traditional Indian philosophies that is missing in science and Western philosophy. This mark is the mark of ‘being seen’ or the mark of ‘knowableness’. This point is so vital that if we fail to recognise it, it is likely to lead us into such a position that we would not be speaking Indian philosophy at all, writes Śrī Chittaranjan Naik.

The mark of ‘being seen’ is a mark of prakṛti, or nature. In Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, Uttara Mīmāṃsā (Vedānta), Sāṅkhya, and Yoga, the prameya is seen as distinct from the seer. This feature of objects as being ‘the seen’ is held by Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika schools as well. In Navya-Nyāya, after defining the seven kinds of padārthas (word-objects) - substance, quality, action, universal, particular, inherence, and non-existence - it states that the common feature of all these seven categories is ‘knowableness’.

This feature of objects being ‘the seen’ finds expression in the philosophical tenet that there is a contact between the seer and the object when the object is seen. This contact is called sannikarṣaṇa, and the form that the (reflected) consciousness of the seer assumes in seeing the object is called ‘vṛtti.’ Thus, the entire world is “the seen”, and it is seen directly ‘as it is’ without there being any extraneous mediating factor between the seer and the seen.

So, according to traditional Indian philosophies, the object known is neither a mere presentation of something else that may be the real object (as in science) nor is it reducible to something lesser than what it presents itself as (such as a mere idea or artifact of the mind). An object is that which stands in front of Consciousness in the cognitive act of perception. The world of Indian philosophy is not the world of Naïve Realism, nor is it the ideated world of idealism.

If we must find a name for it, it may be called the world of Direct Realism – a world as it is that presents directly to Consciousness in an unchanged manner.

Authored by Dr. Pingali Gopal. Published by Brhat.