The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s8.60.1

v2.c40.s8.60.1

This doctrine obviously is more metaphysical than psychological in interest, and goes a very little way to solve the question of the nature of perception or sensation. This is further borne out by the failure to make clear what is meant by senses as opposed to objects; later we find in the Sāṅkhya⁷ a distinct recognition of the difference between function and the material organ, the faculty of hearing, for example, and the gross ear, but such a distinction is nowhere hinted at in the Upaniṣads, and it is uncertain how the matter was regarded in them. In the later texts we find two different theories represented: on the one hand, in the Sāṁkhya philosophy¹ there is a consistent and harmonious materialism of process which, however, is made conscious only by the intervention of the Puruṣa, which is the equivalent in that system of the Ātman of the Vedānta. On the other hand, in the Vedānta, as interpreted by Gauḍapāda,² stress is laid on the fact that ultimately the visions of a dream and those of our waking state cannot be absolutely distinguished: if the dream apparitions are truly produced by the activity of the Ātman, so in the case of waking states the objects are equally produced by the Ātman: the thing and its representation condition each other: each separately has no existence: they exist only in the Ātman, a position which, though differentiated by Çaṅkara from the idealism of the Buddhist Vijñānavāda, tends indefinitely to merge into it.