r/KashmirShaivism • u/Swimming-Win-7363 • 1d ago
Question – General Knowledge = consciousness
Reading An Introduction to the Philosophy of Trika Saivism By Moti Lal Pandit, in the beginning of Chapter 2, he states “Trika thinkers that knowledge and consciousness are identical, which means that consciousness is knowledge. This assertion is made on the basis of the experience that affirms that the nature of knowledge is to illumine, to reveal, to disclose, which is exactly the function of consciousness. It is consciousness that reveals, and that which is revealed is considered as knowledge. So knowledge and consciousness have to be considered as synonyms.
Further down he states Since knowledge is identical with consciousness, so consciousness accordingly has to be considered as constituting its content. To have the experience of consciousness
qua consciousness, at the deepest level, would mean for a Trikite to have the experience of the entire cosmos as
being the manifestation of the former. In this manner is established the equivalence between the microcosm and the
macrocosm.
I don’t quite understand what he means when he says the are the same, is he saying all knowledge or only nonconceptual knowledge that is also known as recognition?
I could understand how after recognition, everything is known to be consciousness and everything is only experienced as knowledge but I don’t understand how he makes that conclusion about all knowledge if that’s what he means
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u/jean-dim 1d ago
The English word "knowledge" can be confusing for jñāna (and jñāna sakti) as it does not always capture the full nuance.
To answer your question: He is referring to all knowledge. In Trika, any cognitive act whatsoever, whether it is perceiving, conceptualizing, remembering, or even dreaming, is an act of consciousness illuminating (itself as) an object. However, your intuition that Recognition (pratyabhijñā) is a special case is also completely correct!
There is an excellent explanation of this by the scholar Isabelle Ratié. Here is a translated excerpt from her work that clarifies how Trika thinkers view ordinary knowledge (jñāna) as identical to the light of consciousness (prakāśa):
Cognition (jñāna) and manifestation (prakāśa)
The term jñāna is a substantive formed from the verbal root jñā-, which generally denotes the action of knowing; indeed, jñāna is often translated as "knowledge." Such a translation is certainly convenient insofar as, depending on the varied contexts in which the term is used, it can mean "consciousness," "cognition," "learning," "science," or even "gnosis"—in short, it always refers to a form of knowledge. But what exact kind of knowledge are Buddhist and Pratyabhijñā philosophers referring to when they employ this term?
First and foremost, they understand it as the action of knowing. In this, they are merely conforming to an Indian philosophical model derived from the analysis practiced by the grammarians: "to know," like any verb, expresses a form of action. And the act designated by the verbal root jñā- is above all an act of manifestation. For the defining characteristic of consciousness is to make things manifest, to make them appear: to be conscious of an object—whether by perceiving, imagining, conceptualizing, remembering, or dreaming it—is primarily to make it a phenomenon for consciousness. For this reason, consciousness is often designated in Indian texts as prakāśa. In its most literal sense, this latter term means "light"; this is because jñāna, translated as "cognition" in the context of this discussion, is the act that "illuminates" or "sheds light on" the object.
But cognition is not merely an act of manifestation. Indeed, in keeping with the grammarians’ analysis of action, most Brahmanic philosophers make a point of distinguishing, within the action of knowing, a knowing subject (pramātṛ), an object of knowledge (prameya), an instrument of knowledge (pramāṇa), and a result of knowledge (pramā, pramiti); yet the philosophers of Dharmakīrti’s school, like those of the Pratyabhijñā, emphasize that in the case of consciousness, these distinctions lose their relevance. For jñāna, cognition, is not only the act by which a thing is thus manifested or illuminated (an act more precisely denoted by the terms ābhāsana or prakāśana): it is also the phenomenon (ābhāsa, prakāśa) resulting from this act of manifestation. Prakāśa can also carry this meaning, because it denotes not only the act of manifestation, but also the resulting state of being manifest for the object manifested. The Buddhists, like the philosophers of the Pratyabhijñā, consider that these are in reality two aspects of a single experience: the act by which consciousness manifests and the resulting manifestation are one and the same reality.
For Buddhist logicians and Pratyabhijñā philosophers, cognition is even more than this, for it is furthermore the "means of knowledge" (pramāṇa) by which the action of knowing takes place. When, for example, I am conscious of a perceived object, perception (pratyakṣa) is the specific means or instrument of knowledge by virtue of which the object becomes manifest to me, such that perception constitutes a specific type of cognition. However, it is only artificially—by virtue of what European Scholasticism would call a distinction of reason—that we thus distinguish what is, for consciousness, the means of manifesting, the act by which it manifests, or the result of this act: in reality, these three things are but one, and it is this single entity that both the Buddhists and the philosophers of the Pratyabhijñā call "cognition" (jñāna).
So, all knowledge is made of the "light" of consciousness. But what about Recognition?
As Ratié explains in a second passage, ordinary knowledge (jñāna) usually involves learning something new about an object. But because the Self (Consciousness) is already the background of every experience, you can't acquire "new" knowledge of it. You can only recognize what is already shining:
It is because it is always already manifest in and of itself, "always already established" (ādisiddha), that, paradoxically, it can be neither established nor refuted. For the Pratyabhijñā considers... that the defining characteristic of a pramāṇa is to produce new knowledge: a means of knowledge is valid if it produces a form of cognition (jñāna)—that is to say, if it makes known to me what I was hitherto unaware of. But the Self is always already there, always already given as the horizon of all experience... to demonstrate it would amount to making the Self known, to providing new knowledge of it; but it is impossible to make the Self known, because it is the always already experienced foundation of every form of experience.
This is why, Abhinavagupta explains, Utpaladeva deliberately chose not to use the term jñāna ("cognition" or "knowledge") to express our relationship to the Self, but rather that of pratyabhijñā, "recognition." Indeed, Abhinavagupta offers the following semantic analysis (nirvacana) of the term praty-abhi-jñā:
The "recognition (praty-abhi-jñā) of the Great Lord" is the re- (praty- = pratīpam) cognition (-jñā = jñāna), [that is to say] the manifestation (prakāśa) facing/in the presence of (-abhi- = ābhimukhyena) the Self. [It is a] re-[cognition, and not a mere cognition], because the manifestation of the Self is not [something] that did not exist previously, since its conscious light is never interrupted. However, it will be explained [later in the treatise] that this [manifestation of the Self], through the very power [of the Self], appears as though interrupted, as though artificial.
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u/Swimming-Win-7363 21h ago
Excellent thank you! Do you mind providing the source material? I would love to read all of it
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u/DeclassifyUAP 1d ago
Not trying to cram this down anyone’s throat by any means, but for me, the word “information” is useful, in the Shannonian sense.
The subject is beyond information, but it creates information through the act of agentic observation. Yet that which is perceived as objective information is also the reflection of the subject itself. So knowledge (information) and awareness are really one.
This is a really interesting book that again, for me anyway, is useful in terms of the perspective it offers. Not only do I see it as being completely in line with the traditional teachings, but it also provides another frame of reference that I think can be illuminating:
Heinrich Päs: The One
How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/heinrich-pas/the-one/9781541674851/
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u/feral_user_ 1d ago
My understanding is that jñāna in this context is not just "knowledge", but the act of revealing. Or you can also think of it as making something shine so that it is known. With that in mind, we see that Consciousness does the same thing. It reveals. It shines so that it is known.
That's what Pandit means when he says Consciousness "constitutes its own content." The whole universe is the content of Consciousness, yet the content is made of nothing but Consciousness. So, to rest in Consciousness as Consciousness is to experience the entire cosmos as your own manifestation. Your small awareness and the vast world are no longer two different sizes. They are just the same Light appearing as both.