Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19.86

c19.86

Error may thus be of two kinds: (i) where only one object is involved, it is mistaking a part for the whole; and (ii) where two objects are involved, it is overlooking the distinction between them and so virtually identifying them with each other. The two kinds can be reduced to the same form, for the second may be looked upon as a particular case of the first. Not knowing the puruṣa or the buddhi completely we confound the one with the other; and when complete knowledge of them is attained the mistake will of itself disappear so that it also, like the first, may be said to result from incomplete knowledge. The two instances of incorrect knowledge given above may together be described as ‘metaphysical error.’ They are what vitiate all experience, and there is no escape from it until jīvan-mukti is achieved. But apart from this basic error of which man is not commonly aware, there is another with which he is quite familiar. Thus a white crystal appears red when it is placed by the side of a red flower; and we sometimes think we see silver when closer scrutiny discovers it to be only shell. Their explanation is similar: In the case of the first, the red flower as well as the white crystal is given, and it is because we lose sight of the fact that they are two that we mistake the colour of the crystal. It is non-discrimination (aviveka) as in the case of the puruṣa and the buddhi, the confusion between which is the cause of empirical life. The moment we realize that there is the flower *in addition* to the crystal, the error vanishes. In the case of the second, only one object, viz. shell, is presented and our error is owing to our stopping short at grasping its features which it has in common with silver for which it is mistaken. That is, it is incomplete knowledge that gives rise to error here, as in the case of the other variety of what we have termed ‘metaphysical error.’ Though thus the two forms of common illusion correspond to the two forms of the other, there is an important difference between them from the practical standpoint. To dispel the latter, complete knowledge is necessary; but in the case of the former it will suffice if we acquire such knowledge as does not leave out the feature which is relevant in the given context to distinguish the objects confounded with each other. To take the second of the two illusions we are considering, such a feature is the lightness of the shell as compared with the heaviness of silver. Because we overlook the fact that the object before us is too light to be silver, we fall into the error; and the moment we discover it, the error disappears.