105. SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 119

SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 119

experience and as such is determinate experience. For, negationinvolves duality. It is elimination of something. The meaning of Sunya in the present context, therefore is not absolute not.being but relative not-being. In the case of the negative experience of deep sleep (Apavedya Susupta), negation refers to all that is apprehended through internal or external senses. "The I", the self, is related to or identified with something that is not the object of internal sense, such as "Prana" and "Sukha" nor with that which is the object of external sense, such as body and other physical objects. It is identified with mere limitation, the Anavamala, inoperation of its power of knowledge and, therefore, negation of knowledge. (Sankocamātra rūpam eva cidrūpam Sūnyam B. V. 496). The word 'Sunya' is used in this context on the analogy of "Ākāa'tl Just as Ākasa is not absolute not-being and is yet spoken of as Sunya, so is the case with Sunya Pramata. There is another point also on which analogy with Akasa holds good. It is all pervasive. Just as there is nothing with which Akasa is not related, so there is nothing, that is objective, to which this limitation, Ajñana, does not refer.

Now the question arises "Is there any object to which the inoperation of power of knowledge refers?" The Saiva replies to it as follows :- The state of deep sleep is the state of emptiness of the subject, because in that state there is absence of what is called object in the wakeful state ; there is negation of the common object. But negation is always on the basis of something that figures objectively in consciousness ; because it is determinate cognition and, therefore, refers to two (i) that which is eliminated and (ii) that from which something is eliminated. The Saiva, therefore, holds that

120 CHAPTER II there is rudimentary consciousness of the residual trace (Samskāra) of objectivity in general, which was experienced in the wakeful state, and that negation refers to gross objective variety of waking experience. Apavedya Sușupta, therefore, is not total negation of objective consciousness, but only that of well differentiated and gross objective cons- ciousness. Accordingly the difference between the experience of Vijnanakala and that of Sunya Pramata is only this that in the former case "I", self-consciousness, predominates and the negative consciousness occupies a subordinate position to it; but in the case of the latter the position is reversed. The personality in deep sleep (Apavedya Susupta) is, therefore, constituted by the Prakasa aspect of the Absolute, with Vimarsa aspect obscured by the principle of ignorance, the Maya. But this does not mean total negation of Vimarsa. It is partly restored to the subject in the form of vidya, the power of limited objective knowledge. This personality, though limited by all the five limiting conditions, imposed upon it by Maya, is characterised by inoperation of three (i) Kala (ii) Niyati and (iii) Raga, because they presuppose the existence of definite object, which is absent in deep sleep. There are, therefore, only two powers of the limited subject (i) Vidya and (ii) Kala, which function in deep sleep. The first is responsible for consciousness of negation of the gross objective world and the second accounts for consciousness of time, because of which the negative experience of deep sleep is referred to the past time, when it is recollected in wakeful state. This negative experience (Sunya) characterises three types of experience (i) Universal annihilation (Pralaya) (ii) intense concentration on negation (Na iti abhāva samādhi) and (iii) deep sleep without gross objective consciousness (Apavedya Suşupta).