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Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s8: XV Memory

Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s8

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XV Memory

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All knowledge is divided into presentative cognitions (anubhava), which are not reproductions of former states of consciousness, and representative cognition (smṛti), which recall previous experiences into consciousness.³ If we exclude memory knowledge, the entire past will drop out of the field of certitude. Memory knowledge is based on residual traces (saṃskārajanya). Memory is defined as “due to a peculiar contact of the soul with the manas and the trace left by the previous experience.”⁴ It is sometimes said to be caused solely by the impression (saṃskāramātrajanya), and thus distinguished from recognition (pratyabhijñā). While the impression is the immediate cause of the recollection, the perception of the identity of the present object with something else is the cause of recognition. The Nyāya does not admit memory as a separate source of knowledge, since we have in it not any cognitive knowledge of objects, but only a reproduction of a past experience in the same form and order in which it once existed in the past and has now ceased to exist.¹ The validity of remembered knowledge depends on that of the previous experience which is reproduced. Some logicians include remembered knowledge under valid cognition when the latter is defined as knowledge which is not contradicted.² Recollections are not simultaneous, since attention(praṇidhāna), perception of the sign and the rest (liṅgādijñāna) are not present at one and the same time.³

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³ Tarkasaṃgraha, p. 34.

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⁴ V.S., ix. 2. 6.

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¹ N.S. Vṛtti, i. 1. 3.

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² Tarkakaumudī, p. 7.

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³ N.S., iii. 2. 33 ; N.B., iii. 2. 25-30 ; N.V., iii. 2. 25-26. Among the causes of recollection are mentioned: (1) praṇidhāna, or attention ; (2) nibandha, or association ; (3) abhyāsa, or repetition ; (4) liṅga, or sign ; (5) lakṣaṇa, or descriptive sign ; (6) sādṛśya, or similarity ; (7) parigraha, or ownership ; (8) āśrayāśṛtasaṃ bandha, or the relation of correlatives ; (9) ānantarya, or immediate sequence ; (10) viyoga, or separation ; (11) ekakārya, or identity of function ; (12) virodha, or enmity ; (13) atiśaya, or superiority ; (14) prāpti, or acquisition ; (15) vyavadhāna, or intervention ; (16) sukhaduḥkha, or pleasure-pain ; (17) icchādveṣa, or desire and aversion ; (18) bhaya, or fear ; (19) arthitva, or need ; (20) kriyā, or action ; (21) rāga, or affection ; (22) dharma, or merit ; (23) adharma, or demerit. These, according to Vātsyāyana, are only suggestive and by no means exhaustive. Nidarśanaṃ cedaṃ smṛtihetūnāṃ na parisaṃkhyānam iti (N.B., iii. 2. 41). All the causes of the association and recall of ideas can be brought under these heads.

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