SELF LUMINOUSITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS BASED ON SRI CITSUKHAS DISCUSSION IN TATTVA PRADIPIKA

Sri Citsukha was an eminent Advaitin scholar in the 13th Century A.D. His most important works are: 1. Adhikaranamanjari: a brief summary of contents of the adhikaranas in Sri Sankaras Brahmasutra Bhashya. 2. Abhiprayaprakasika: A commentary on Sri Mandana Mishras Brahmasiddhi 3. Bhavaprakasika: a commentary on Sri Sankaras Brahmasutrabhashya where he reconciles the differences between the Vivarana and Bhamati Schools. 4. Bhavadipika: a famous commentary on Sri Harshas Khandanakhandakhadya (sweetmeat of refutations). 5. Tattvaprakasika: a commentary on Sri Suresvaras Naishkarmaya Siddhi. 6. Vivriti: a commentary on Sri Anandabodhas Nyayamakaranda. 7. Vivati: a commentary on Sri Anandhabodhas Pramanamala. 8. Tatparyadipika: a commentary on Sri Prakasataman Munis Panchapadika Vivarana. 9. Tattva Pradipika: an original treatise the purpose of which is to defend Advaita and criticize the viewpoints of its opponents. The first section of this work contains a systematic discussion on self-luminosity of consciousness. We will be concerned with this part of the book.

BACKGROUNDTo understand the rigorous dialectical discourse of Sri Citsukha it is imperative to have some knowledge of Nyaya logic. Inference or anumana in Nyaya is a pramana, it leads to valid knowledge of some object based on another object which acts as a sign or mark for the presence of the former object. The previous knowledge of invariable concomitance between the sign and the signified and the knowledge of their presence in a certain locus based on the above said relation leads to anumana. To illustrate with the help of an example, someone notices smoke on a mountain. Smoke reminds him of fire and also that he has noticed their co-presence in a kitchen or a hearth and their co-absence in a lake and thus he knows that smoke is invariably accompanied by fire. Based on this knowledge of invariable concomitance (vyapti) between smoke and fire, the person believes that the smoke on the mountain also must be accompanied by fire and he concludes this must be the case. Here the Naiyayika is not saying that psychologically we always go through this long process when we infer something for a difference is made between inference for oneself and for another. When we present our inferential knowledge we always do so in a syllogistic form and the above description was of a way to convey ones inferential knowledge. The Nyaya syllogism consists of five steps:1. Theory (Pratijna): The Mountain possesses fire2. Reason (hetu): because of smoke3. Example (udharana): where there is smoke there is fire as in a kitchen4. Application (upanaya): This Mountain similarly possesses smoke which is invariable concomitant with fire5. Conclusion (nigamana): Therefore the mountain possesses fire.Here smoke is the hetu or the middle term, fire is the sadhya or the major term and mountain is the paksha or the minor term. The instances which have the co-presence of the smoke and fire is the sapaksha and where such a relation is not found that is called the vipaksha.It should be noted that all examples brought in an argument and counter argument to support an empirical generalization must be acceptable to both the parties. There are three different types of inferences in Nyaya:1. Kevalanvayi (only positive): when the hetu and the sadhya have only a sapaksha but no vipaksha. For example: All that is knowable is nameable. The pot is knowable and hence is nameable. Here knowable and nameable pervade the whole world and hence there is no instance where their co-absence may be found. (For Nyaya there is no instance where knowability and nameability are absent).2. Kevala Vyatireki (only negative): here the hetu and sadhya have no positive instance of agreement in presence. An example will suffice here: no non-soul is animate. All living beings are animate. Therefore all living beings have souls. Here the hetu animate is said to be found only in living beings or beings possessing a soul and nowhere else and hence no positive instance apart from the disputed case can be found. Therefore the concomitance is established negatively, between absence of possessing a soul and absence of animate-ness. 3. Anvaya Vyatireki (Agreement in presence and absence): Here the hetu and sadhya are both positively and negatively related to each other like in the mountain fire and smoke example.Inference takes place always when there is pervasion or vyapti between two objects which act as sign and the signified. However vyapti may be of different types or degrees. When the relation between the hetu and the sadhya is in an unfailing relation, here both the objects may act as the sign and signified for each other. For example something is sinful because it is prohibited in the Vedas and something is prohibited in the Vedas because it is sinful. Then there may be an instance where only one object forms the sign for another but not vica verse. For example one may infer fire on the basis of smoke but not vica verse as fire does not pervade smoke like in a red hot iron ball. Thirdly two objects may be mutually exclusive for example the class of cows and the class of horses, where the one is the other is not and hence there is a relation of exclusion between them. In Nyaya there are no fallacies but blockers or preventers. The so called fallacies in Nyaya block the awareness or cognition of an inference to arise or they themselves may be cognitions that oppose the awareness of inference to arise. Mostly they are based on deviation between the hetu and the sadhya, either there is some instance where the hetu is and sadhya is not or their relation may be conditional. This brings us to the theory of upadhi. Upadhi is something that pervades the sadhya but does not pervade the hetu and hence blocks an inference. For example in the inference mountain has smoke because it has fire, fuel is the upadhi, it pervades instances of smoke but not of fire for fire may be present in a red hot iron ball.Tarka is that which removes any doubt about the invariable concomitance between two objects. It starts with an assumption based on the denial of vyapti and shows how it leads to absurdities. For example: If the soul was not eternal, then it may not experience the fruits of past life and hence it is eternal.There are four kinds of absence in Nyaya: a) prior absence, this is the status of an object when it is absent before its production b) posterior absence, this refers to an object that has been destroyed c) absolute absence, this is absence of an object in a locus in all three periods of time and d) mutual absence, this is absence of identity between two objects. The entity negated is called the pratiyogin or counterpositive of the negation, for example, when we say a pot is absent from the floor, the pot is the pratiyogin or the counterpositive.This is a very short account of a subject which needs volumes to be expressed in but nevertheless it is sufficient for our current purposes.

DEFINITION OF SELF LUMINOUSITY AND ITS PROOF

Sri Citsukha considers eleven definitions of self-luminosity before accepting the eleventh one and rejecting the previous ten. He defines self-luminosity as the capability for empirical usage without being an object of awareness. Immediately an objection is raised. Is the so called capacity an attribute of awareness or an indicator (an accidental property)? Either way the definition would not apply to pure consciousness for it would violate the tenets of Advaita as there is nothing apart from pure consciousness which is non-dual. The definition may apply to substratum-consciousness when due to avidya, consciousness is said to be the substratum of the world but considered in itself, minus avidya must we then say that consciousness is not self-luminous? Sri Citsukha replies that capacity here has to be interpreted in a technical way. It means that this capacity never is a counterpositive of an absolute absence in consciousness. Although in the non-dual state there is no empirical usage of consciousness yet it is not absolutely devoid of such a capacity. From the standpoint of avidya there shall always be in consciousness the said fitness for empirical usage without being objectified. From the absolute standpoint then we may say although the said fitness is not present, it is not eternally absent too. This may still sound like consciousness possesses a specific power or capacity. But this is not so for self-luminosity is the very nature of consciousness although we express it in a subject-predicate form, as if consciousness is the possessor of the property of self-luminosity, from the standpoint of avidya. Sri Citsukha quotes Sri Padmapadas Panchapadika in his support: Joy, experience of objects and eternity are the characteristics of Atman. Although they are not different they appear to be different from pure consciousness. The import of this whole discussion is that consciousness is such that it illumines all objects but in itself it is self-revealed, it does not need anything over and above itself to reveal itself unlike a material object. But when it is not illuminating objects can we still say that it is self-luminous? Consider for a moment we define fire as that which has the ability to burn. But it burns objects only when they come in contact with it. But yet we may say that even when it is not burning something it still has the capacity to burn and also that capacity to burn is identical with fire or the very nature of fire. Same is the case here with consciousness, by its very nature is self-luminous even when it is illuminating other objects and also when all duality is absent. It should be noted here that pure consciousness is self-luminous but not reflected consciousness or consciousness delimited by mind or the vritti. When there is awareness, we know that we know and we do not require another cognition to become aware of the fact that we areaware but this is because Brahma-caitanya is self-luminous. Panchadasi 8.4 says:"The consciousness reflected in the vritti coincident with the jar manifests simply the jar. The fact that the jar is known is manifested by Brahma Caitanya." 8.16 says: "The statement 'this is a jar' is due to the favor of reflection. The statement 'The jar is known' is due to the favor of Brahma Caitanya (underlying consciousness)". Buddhi appears to be sentient and self-luminous because of pure consciousness. Pure consciousness illumines both the object of knowledge and the knowledge that one knows the object and thus reflected consciousness too is an object of consciousness.The definition calls consciousness unknowable to exclude ordinary material objects like pot etc. from the definition. They being the objects of empirical cognitions are not self-luminous. But if such is the case then how is it that we are able to talk about consciousness? To talk about something and say it is unknown or unknowable is self-contradictory. How again can the Upanishads inform us about Brahman? The reply is that pure consciousness is not absolutely unknowable. We have an immediate intuition of consciousness in a manner that is different from all knowledge we may have of any other object. Even in perception our awareness of the sense object is mediated by various processes of sense contact and removal of avidya through the antahkarana vritti. Sense perception thus comes as the end result of a long causal process to reveal the object to the subject. But the intuition of consciousness does not lie anywhere at the end of a causal process, our awareness of its presence is immediate in the full sense of the term. There is no gap between consciousness and our consciousness of consciousness. This knowledge is not caused in us, we just seem to have it all along. The only sense in which consciousness is an object is that we can communicate about it though this nowhere implies that consciousness then would indeed be captured by the mind in which a sense object is. For whenever we think about consciousness we conceptualize it and consciousness by its very nature lies beyond any conceptualization. It transcends our thoughts for thoughts limit but consciousness knows no limitations in which it is like space, all-pervading. Whenever consciousness becomes associated with any cognitive process, any vritti, it becomes reflected consciousness and not pure consciousness. We can conceptualize about pure consciousness in order to communicate with it but any such conceptualization is a superimposition on consciousness and hence we never capture consciousness in it pure nature, though we never lose it too, for us to capture it in our mind, later. Consciousness thus is speakable but not knowable. Our speech about a jar is caused by our awareness of a jar but communicability of consciousness depends only on its presence and not on a separate awareness about it. Immediacy of consciousness is found in all our cognitive operations whether it be thinking or perceiving or inferring, and we know it in a way we know no other thing. We can think about it, perceive it, infer its presence, but only remotely for when we think about it, it does not remain thought, when we infer it, it does not remain the entity inferred. All these cognitive processes depend on consciousness for their fulfillment but they cannot turn back on consciousness to reveal it for it is self-revealed. Consequently we speak about consciousness in negative terms, to say that it immediate is not to ascribe it a positive property but to deny mediate-ness to it, to say that it is self-luminous is to deny non-self-luminosity in it. The opponent conflates the difference between unknowability and unknowability with capacity for communicability. Thus the definition given is pure consciousness is capable of empirical usage though unknowable. The capacity of empirical usage is contingent on there being the domain of avidya yet consciousness is never absolutely bereft of it. To sum up, Consciousness is a union of illumination and existence, illumination constitutes its very being and nature. Hence the proof of consciousness in Advaita is apodictic. To deny consciousness is self-contradictory and to affirm it is a tautology, for consciousness is needed for the very act of denial or affirmation to be.The definition being given Sri Citsukha moves onto to prove pure consciousness is self-luminous. The proof is presented syllogistically as follows: Consciousness is self-luminous because it is consciousness (awareness) unlike a jar.This is an only negative inference. All the positive instances are included in the paksha and hence the inference has to be understood as whatever is not consciousness is not self-luminous and vica versa. Hence here the udharana or example is negative, it exhibits the concomitance of absence of sadhya (thing to be proved) where there is absence of hetu (reason). The opponent here brings out the charge of sadhyaprassidhi on the Advaitin. In Nyaya there is the condition for inference that there must be an invariable concomitance between the probans (hetu) and the probandum (probandum). This invariable relation fails to be materialized if either the probans or the probandum be an altogether unknown fact, for a relation between two unknown facts or an unknown fact and a known fact is inconceivable. If the probans are unknown it constitutes the fallacy of sadhanaprassidhi and if the probandum is unknown it constitutes the fallacy of sadhyaprassidhi. The above fallacies also occur even when either the probans or the probandum are known existent facts but are qualified by unknown or non-existent predicates. Here the advaitin is trying to prove that consciousness is self-luminous in a manner defined above. But we cannot define things into existence. The property of self-luminosity is completely unknown, what proof do we have for it. The Advaitins retort by a counter syllogism, which runs as follows:Knowability is a property and is thus subject to absolute negation in some substrate.In this way unknowability in a particular substrate is established, it implies the presence of such a property as self-luminosity. Unknowability is one of the characteristic marks of self-luminosity and is thus established by inference. Since Knowability is subject to negation in some substrate, there may be some locus which possesses unknowability. The opponent counters this by an inference: If consciousness is not a content of awareness (unknowable), then it cannot be a real entity. But it may be replied that consciousness does not need to be a content of awareness to be real, it may be self-luminous. The other mark of self-luminosity viz. immediate apprehension is established through another inference thus:That object is immediately apprehended which if it were not would lead to such undesirable consequences like infinite regress etc.For Sri Citsukha self-luminosity of consciousness forms the very basis for any activity, cognitive or conative. In apprehending an object we also apprehend our apprehension of the object. If this was not the case and we needed another awareness to become aware of the presence of awareness in us, then to be aware of this awareness we would require another awareness and then a still another one and so on ad infinitum. Consequently we may never know that we know and we would ever be in doubt whether awareness has occurred in us or not. This doubt would lead to a complete failure of our cognitive and conative systems. We act not just on the basis of our knowledge of an object but also on the knowledge that we know the object. If this feature is left out, we can never say or believe that we have experience. We never have a doubt in the form: has the knowledge of the pot arisen in me or not? We speak, think and act because of the light of consciousness illuminates all. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that we are immediately aware of our awareness of an object. To quote Sri Citsukha: If at the time of cognizing a content, the experience were also not cognized, then in the instant following the awareness of the content the person desiring knowledge of this object will doubt his experience (have I had this awareness or not), or else may have a contrary experience (I have had the awareness of non-existence of this object), or have a directly opposite experience (I did not have that experience). But when the individual is asked in the instant following his experience he neither expresses doubt nor admits of a contrary experience nor of one directly opposite, but he firmly says, I have seen this thing. Therefore it is reasonable that consciousness being self-luminous produces practical activity concerning the content. Considering the possibility of awareness being the content of another awareness Sri Citsukha says: Just as the eye etc. are not self-luminous (but are illumined by something other than themselves), so too will awareness be produced by an awareness which is other than itself and consequently awareness will not be the cause of practical activity with respect to an object. Furthermore since insentient objects are neither self-luminous nor illumine each other, they cannot be luminous. On this model awareness too will be non-luminous. And if awareness is non-luminous the entire world will remain in darkness. This refutes the Nyaya theory of anuvyavasaya which says that cognition is not self-apprehended but is cognized by another cognition. Just as the existence of ordinary objects are established on the basis of our cognitions of them similarly the existence of cognition is established by cognizing the same. To defend this thesis Nyaya brings out an inference: Cognition is knowable because it is an actual object like a jar. This would refute both the unknowability of awareness and also their immediacy. Sri Citsukha retorts that for the inference to succeed there will have to be an awareness of pervasion between Knowability and being an actual object, but it may be asked is this awareness which is aware of the said pervasion is itself self-illumined or not, if it is then the opponent would have conceded the point to the proponent, if not then the inference would fail since one is not aware of an awareness of the pervasion and if there is no awareness of the pervasion then how will the inference succeed. The point is that self-luminosity is the very basis for pramanas to work. The Advaitin by putting forward a syllogism is not literally establishing self-luminosity of consciousness for it is self-proved except ofcourse for its opponents, but for the Advaitin it is nothing but a reinforcement of an intuition. The Pramanas have their very being; owe their very function due to the self-luminosity of consciousness; consciousness is the transcendental condition for the pramanas to be, for otherwise the world would be nothing but darkness. This establishes the second mark of self-luminosity and the fallacy of sadhya-prasiddhi is averted. The opponent says that the Advaitins argument is something like this: A Jar is self-luminous, because it is a jar. That, which is not like this, is not a jar. But as a matter of fact a jar is illumined by sense-perception and hence we are directly aware of the absence of self-luminosity in a jar and consequently the case is not analogous.The opponent now brings the charge of svarupasiddhi and ashrayasiddhi. The former fallacy arises when the middle term is absent from the minor term (when fire is inferred on a hill the middle term smoke has to be perceived on that hill) and the latter arises when the minor term is unreal. The argument is that the middle term, consciousness (which is not pure consciousness but apparently for the opponent is empirical cognition or reflected consciousness), does not reside in pure consciousness, hence the fallacy of svarupasiddhi, and pure consciousness which is the minor term is single and homogenous with no plurality, consequently it lacks a distinguishing mark that separates it from other things, but for the Advaitins pure consciousness has no other. Because pure consciousness lacks a distinguishing mark the minor term should be regarded as unreal or imaginary and thus unfit to be the minor term of an inference. To the charge of svarupasiddhi the Advaitin replies that from the absolute point of view pure consciousness is unempirical but considering from the domain of avidya empirical cognitions exist. In the above inference we take the middle term not as particular cognitions but from a general point of view of being a cognition and hence attributable to pure consciousness, the minor term. All particular cognitions, because they are nothing but pure consciousness, possess the generic character of being consciousness though from an empirical point of view we have to consider its difference from the original consciousness. Pure consciousness possessed of such a generality would contradict Advaita from an absolute standpoint but not from an empirical standpoint. To the charge of ashrayasiddhi, Sri Citsukha replies that we can take pure consciousness to be possessed of the distinguishing mark of experience-ness or the property of being a cognition, since again here as in the former objection we are making considerations from the empirical point of view. But a distinguishing mark is class property which resides in many different entities; experiences are varied for the opponent but for the proponent there exists but the single pure consciousness. Thus there is no validity of a class property like experience-ness. To this the immediate retort is that just as moon-hood can be considered as an appropriate class property when moon, though one is reflected in many different mediums, similarly one pure consciousness is reflected in many internal organs which act as their upadhis or limiting adjuncts, consequently from the empirical point of view the class property of experience-ness is valid and hence the distinguishing mark of pure consciousness as mere experience-ness, holds. Note here that moon-ness would be a class property for the opponent too which in this case is Nyaya, the reason this was necessary was because the middle term has to be acceptable to both the disputing parties. The reader should here recollect the difference between reflected consciousness and original consciousness made earlier. The two objections considered above arised because the difference between the two was obliterated even from an empirical standpoint, the opponent conflated absolute and relative standpoints, a distinction central to the tenets of Advaita. Also there was some ambiguity in the Advaitins middle term which needed to be removed. The whole argument thus comes to this that pure consciousness is self-luminous because it is of the nature of apprehension (which is not a particular experience or cognition but a general mark of any particular cognition or experience), unlike any entity which does not possess this distinguishing mark, which as it turns out are all material objects or objects of pure consciousness, for anything different from pure consciousness is a material object and hence insentient (even an empirical cognition). This is a consideration purely from the empirical domain for we dont make inferential arguments from a transcendental domain at all. Thus Sri Padmapada says in his Panchapadika: When consciousness appears in connection with other objects and manifests them it is called experience (anubhava) and when it is by itself it is called the self or the Atman (pure self-revealing consciousness). Consciousness reveals objects when they are illusorily superimposed on it which happens in the realm of avidya.Sri Citsukha next argues that the Self is self-luminous because it is of the nature of awareness. We never doubt our own existence, to deny this is to contradict oneself. The Self exists in all three states of waking, dream and deep sleep and is immediately intuited. If the self would be nothing but a succession of mental states or functions then in deep sleep when such mental states have ceased there should be an end to the notion of the identity of the self and a man waking up should have been different from the man who slept. Our notion of Self is derived from the Atman though under the influence of avidya we regard ourselves as psychophysical beings. Our sense of ego too is not essential to us for it is absent in deep sleep. At such a time it is only because of the self-luminosity of the Atman that acts as the substratum of our sense of individuality which otherwise would have been lost. The identity of the self is because of the identity of the Self.

CONSCIOUSNESS IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Tim Crane in his book The Mechanical Mind summarizes the current attitude of philosophers towards consciousness, in the following manner: A creature is phenomenally conscious when there is something it is like to be that creature; a state of mind is phenomenally conscious when there is something it is like to be in that state. The special way a state of mind is what constitutes what it is like to be in that state, is likewise called the phenomenal character of the state. Sometimes phenomenal consciousness is described in terms of qualia. Qualia are supposed to be non-representational, non-intentional, yet phenomenally conscious properties of states of mind. Believers in qualia say that the particular character of the aroma of smelling coffee cannot be captured in terms of the way the smell represents coffee; this would fail to capture the way it feels to smell coffee. Even when you have described all the ways your experience of the smell of coffee represents coffee, you will have left something out: that is the qualia of the experience of smelling coffee, the intrinsic properties of the experience, which are independent of the representation of coffee. Someone who believes in qualia denies Brentanos thesis that all mental phenomena are intentional: certain conscious properties of states of mind are not intentional at all. And these are supposed to be the properties which are so hard to make sense of from a naturalistic point of view. Hence the problem of consciousness is often called the problem of qualia. But though it is not controversial that there is such a thing as phenomenal consciousness, it is controversial that there are qualia. Some philosophers deny that there are any qualia, and by this they do not mean that there is no phenomenal consciousness. What they mean is that there is nothing to phenomenal consciousness over and above the representational properties of states of mind. In the case of visual perception, for example, these philosophers known as intentionalists or representationalists say that when I perceive something blue I am not aware of some intrinsic property of my state of mind, in addition to the blueness which I perceive. To say that consciousness is intentional means that consciousness is always about something or is always directed to something other than itself. It cannot turn on itself and know itself though it reveals the object towards which it is directed at. Consciousness thus is always about something. Functionalists and representationalists reduce consciousness to the functional organization of the brain. Consciousness is nothing over and above the functions it may perform or the role it has in the system. Directing behavior, forming judgments and ability to verbally report an experience indicate the presence or the function of consciousness that it occupies in a cognitive system. Many philosophers who take a non-reductive view of consciousness also accept the functionalist picture of the mind. According to David Chalmers, the leading proponent of non-reductive functionalism, there is an organizational invariance between consciousness and a functionally organized system. But what is that which counts as a functional system of a sort that is invariable with consciousness? According to Chalmers: A Functional organization is best understood as the abstract pattern of causal interaction between various parts of a system and perhaps between these parts and external inputs and outputs. A functional organization is determined by specifying: a) a number of abstract components b) for each component a number of different possible states c) a system of dependency relations, specifying how the states of each component depends on a previous state of all components and on inputs to the system, and how outputs from the system depend on previous component states A given functional organization can be realized by diverse physical systems. For example the organization realized by the brain at the neural level might in principle be realized by a physical system. A description of the brains functional organization abstracts away from the physical nature of the parts involved and from the way that causal connections are implemented. All that counts is the existence of parts and the dependency relations between their states. On this view even a computer may be said to have experiences in some sense of the term. This may seem counter intuitive but there is no valid reason to believe that consciousness is not present where there may be a physical system that realizes the functional organization of the sort mentioned above. Afterall it seems counterintuitive that even something like a brain could manifest consciousness but actually it does. For a reductive functionalist consciousness can be reduced to the functional organization or the physical system that realizes it but for a non-reductive functionalist consciousness is different from the said organized system though it may invariably be found in such systems. The relation between the two may be governed by certain psychophysical laws. We may also find a certain structure in consciousness which mirrors the structure of our awareness. For example our visual field has a certain geometry. We perceive red patches, yellow patches, objects with certain shapes and sizes etc. which are cognitively represented in the mind. Anyone with the knowledge of the structure of this representative awareness would also know that the same structure will be found in our phenomenal consciousness. This is known as the principle of structural coherence. Accordingly every experience has two sides to it, psychological and phenomenal. The former is what we know about an experience from a third person point of view, how a physical process of perception takes place and how we have a direct access to this cognition and how it influences our behavior. This would be the area of study for cognitive scientists. The other is phenomenal, the way an experience seems to be to us. This is represents the first person point of view. According to the principle of structural coherence whatever structure our awareness (in the cognitive or psychological system) the same structure would be mirrored in consciousness and vica versa.

For the advaitin consciousness is not intentional though it appears to be so due to the mind which acts as a limiting adjunct for it. Qualia for the advaitin would be reflected consciousness. The principle of structural coherence would be actually the case of superimposition, where psychological qualities or qualities of the mind are superimposed on consciousness. The question whether consciousness is intentional or not is a matter of dispute even in Indian philosophy. Those systems which are not eleminivatist about consciousness also believe that consciousness is purely intentional in nature and hence is not self-aware. Nyaya for example as we have seen above believes that the only way we know about the existence of consciousness is through cognizing it through another cognition. Consciousness cannot reveal the object and itself at the same time for which it would have to turn back on itself simultaneously with revealing another object. However the advaitin contends that this would be true if consciousness would have been just like any other material object but as a matter of fact it is by its very nature immediate and this immediacy itself informs us of its very existence. We do not require consciousness to turn back on itself, for then we would have had no immediate intuition of it. For Sri Ramanuja consciousness is self-luminous, it reveals itself as well as its object. But even this view takes consciousness to be primarily intentional for it is not possible on this view that consciousness could reveal only itself but not an object, as it does according to the Advaitin in deep sleep state. Consciousness always reveals its object to the subject along with itself. But consciousness cannot be aware of its own presence, it is only the subject that can be aware of consciousness. For the Vishistadvaitin there is no contradiction in consciousness performing two functions at the same time, one of revealing itself and the other of revealing its object as in the case of a lamp. Such a notion of self-luminosity was criticized by Sri Citsukha while rejecting definition 5. The objection was that if awareness is regarded as the cause of awareness then that would be in perfect consonance with the Nyaya theory of anuvyavasaya. If however what is meant is that awareness in itself is cause of its own awareness, then the whole proposition would be meaningless, like saying jar is the cause of jar. Awareness cannot be the cause of its own awareness for then it will have to precede it, but if it does then the theory of self-luminosity (in the Vishishtadvaitins view) would be given up. For Sri Ramanuja empirical cognitions are self-luminous while for the advaitin only pure consciousness is self-luminous, if however empirical cognitions were regarded as self-luminous then they would stand in no need to be revealed by pure consciousness. For the advaitin pure consciousness which is immediately intuited cannot be an object of thought but the cognitive representation would be a superimposition on consciousness and hence would not capture pure consciousness as it is. Rather when we make pure consciousness an object we do it through a mental mode which then becomes an empirical cognition and not pure consciousness. It is in a very weak sense that we call pure consciousness an object as has been explained above. We think of pure consciousness not as pure consciousness but as an empirical cognition, which however is an error. This is thus a counterexample to the principle of structural coherence for there is no coherence between thought and consciousness. The principle error of this theory lies in trying to link awareness (which term for Chalmers means any cognition to which our mind can have a direct access and which is capable to play some kind of a role in our behavior) with consciousness. It also disregards the presence of consciousness in deep sleep, which absence is inferred on the basis of absence of awareness. But if awareness (used in the technical sense given above) is absent in deep sleep then how does the person who wakes from deep sleep is able to report the absence of any knowledge whatsoever during this period? The absence of awareness consequently stands in need of being illuminated by consciousness. And according to the definition of self-luminosity of consciousness, it is capable of being communicated. Since awareness is absent in such a state, the verbal report of its absence can be communicated due to the capacity of consciousness to be an object of empirical usage. It may be contended that the non-existence of awareness is inferred on the basis of non-recollection in the period of deep sleep. Here the minor term will be the period of deep sleep, the probandum would be non-existence of knowledge and the probans would be non-recollection. Recall that the valid knowledge of paksha, sadhya and hetu are necessary for an inference. The advaitin thus could argue that the minor term viz. period of deep sleep remains unknown for no knowledge exists in such a state. The minor term being unknown, one cannot know the presence of middle term in it and no concomitance of middle and the major in the minor will be known. Moreover the middle term is wavering for non-recollection is no proof for non-existence of something. Thus no such inference is possible. For the advaitin then both qualia and the instance of deep sleep can act as counter-examples to the reductive functionalist for consciousness is proven to exist in itself and not as a function. Revelation for consciousness is not a function but its very nature, if this was not so then one would have never been immediately aware of consciousness in deep sleep where there is a general absence of awarenesses and this itself is a fact that is revealed. If consciousness would need to have been revealed by another of its kind then consciousness would never have been immediately intuited in deep sleep for no mediate cause of awareness exists in such a state. Consciousness exists even when it is not performing any function. For a property dualist like David Chalmers, for whom consciousness is a property distinct from material properties but invariably attached to material properties exhibiting a functionalist system, the advaitin can urge that there is an absence of such invariability and the cases of their association are one of a metaphysical error and are not natural. On his behalf it may be argued that we experience many things without our being specifically aware of them. This is a case of unconscious perception. This may well be from the standpoint of waking state but in deep sleep all experiences are evidently absent unlike even in dream state where unconscious images come to mind and are perceived. From the point of view of deep sleep there is no cognition at all either in a strong sense or a weak sense. How would the sub-conscious or unconscious levels of mind be accounted for by the advaitin? For him what Chalmers calls awareness would be vritti jnana or consciousness reflected through a cognitive process. This is a specific state of mind. When however there is no such cognitive process taking place that space we may regard as sub-conscious or unconscious levels of mind. These layers pertain to the mind and not to consciousness which is ever self-revealed and which is present in all three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. However the unconscious is not a separate compartment of mind but only one of its aspects. Chalmers believes that consciousness is a case against physicalism or materialism but not against naturalism. One can consistently be a naturalist by renouncing materialism. He can be a property dualist (one who holds that phenomenal properties are distinct from material properties). However consciousness infact refutes a naturalistic world view too for it transcends any limitations of physical laws that could predict any occurrence in phenomenal domain by taking it as invariably related to the psychological domain. This follows as a direct consequence of the failure of structural coherence of awareness and consciousness. What then could be the relation between consciousness and mind? The relation if there is a need for it to be specified is one of superimposition. Consciousness and material entities (mind included) are like light and darkness, opposite in nature to each other. There can thus be no law-like regularities between the two of them and hence no possibility of psychophysical laws grounding them. However there is a sense in which the principle of structural coherence holds. It may hold between the mechanical or psychological aspect of mind and reflected consciousness but not pure consciousness. The problem is that the principle of structural coherence tells us nothing about the nature of consciousness. But when the nature of consciousness is determined to be self-luminous and free from subject-object duality, we can correct the otherwise fallacious picture that the principle of structural coherence presents to us about consciousness and also be aware of the limitations of the theory. Chalmers was right when he took the phenomenal quality of any experience and considered it as distinct from material properties. But he limited the whole notion of consciousness to this phenomenal datum and failed to investigate other aspects of consciousness. He indeed confesses that in his current position little can be said about the nature of consciousness though he believes whatever theory we may have, it should not be opposed to naturalism, and for otherwise consciousness would not be a worthy object of scientific investigation. However in Advaita consciousness forms the very basis of our activities, cognitive and conative, without the light of consciousness shining the whole world would be blind. Consequently its place in the scheme of things is before anything else and consequently a naturalistic world view would not work in its case since it does not give consciousness its rightful premier position.

According to Gilbert Ryle the Advaitin has misused language. He takes a picture of consciousness as a lamp that illumines objects, however if we investigate the cases where the term knowledge or consciousness is used we find nothing apart from belief in some object or disposition to be believe that makes us adopt some behavior towards that object. Following Wittgenstein he says that it is not the function of philosophy to explain facts, which privilege belongs to science, but philosophy needs just to observe facts, how they are used in a language speaking community and enumerate them in order to remove any wrong views pertaining to them. The purpose of philosophy is thus to cure us of the malady of misuse of language. The theory that Ryle advocates is called the behavioristic theory of mind. The problem with this theory is that we may be able to observe behavior in someone and ascribe him a corresponding belief state, but we can never observe our own behavior. Infact there is a joke regarding this theory. One day two behaviorists met in a caf, the first one said to the other, you are feeling jovial, how am I feeling? The Advaitin, however, tries to explain facts and not just enumerate them. As we saw above self-luminosity is the very condition needed for there to be any possible behavior or have a belief about an object. In our everyday communication we may indeed use the words knowledge etc. to indicate a belief or a disposition to behave in a particular manner towards that object, but that does not invalidate the fact that such usage may itself have been founded on the self-luminosity of consciousness. The term consciousness may be used to inform us about a certain principle that grounds the ordinary practices of human beings, the test of such a principle should be in its ability to explain facts and only if some facts are left unexplained do we have a right to disavow the theory. It true that sometimes philosophers suit facts to suit theories rather than suit theories to suit facts, but this should not count as a case against positive theory building rather it should be regarded as a sign of caution. It is also important to note that the self-luminosity of consciousness is not a theoretical construct but a principle discovered and understood and explicated by the Advaitin. How the term consciousness, may be used is not relevant to the case at hand, but what aspect of our world does it denote is the important thing to understand. That is the function of philosophy unless we do not make it a handmaid of science. The philosopher who denies this is akin to the plumber who says to his client that there is no such thing as plumbing, just like a philosopher who would tell you there is no such thing as philosophy!

REFERENCES

1. Tattva Pradipika of Sri Citsukha

2. The Mechanical Mind by Tim Crane

3. The Conscious Mind In search of a fundamental theory by David Chalmers

4. Panchadasi by Sri Vidyaranya Muni

5. The Concept Of Mind by Gilbert Ryle