troyed; it does not matter whether the cause which
produced the illusion was beginningless or not. Some Vedantists
however define ajnana as the substance constituting illusion, and
say that though it is not a positive entity yet it may be regarded
as forming the substance of the illusion; it is not necessary that
only a positive entity should be the matter of any thing, for what
is necessary for the notion of a material cause (_upadana_) is this,
that it should continue or persist as the same in all changes of
effects. It is not true that only what is positive can persist in
and through the effects which are produced in the time process.
Illusion is unreal and it is not unnatural that the ajnana which
also is unreal should be the cause of it.

454

Ajnana established by Perception and Inference.

Ajnana defined as the indefinite which is neither positive nor
negative is also directly experienced by us in such perceptions
as "I do not know, or I do not know myself or anybody else,"
or "I do not know what you say," or more particularly "I had
been sleeping so long happily and did not know anything." Such
perceptions point to an object which has no definite characteristics,
and which cannot properly be said to be either positive or negative.
It may be objected that the perception "I do not know" is not
the perception of the indefinite, the ajnana, but merely the negation
of knowledge. To this Vedanta says that had it been the
perception of a negation merely, then the negation must have
been associated with the specific object to which it applied.
A negation must imply the thing negatived; in fact negation
generally appears as a substantive with the object of negation
as a qualifying character specifying the nature of the negation.
But the perception "I do not know or I had no knowledge" does
not involve the negation of any particular knowledge of any
specific object, but the knowledge of an indefinite objectless
ignorance. Such an indefinite ajnana is positive in the sense that
it is certainly not negative, but this positive indefinite is not positive
in the same sense in which other definite entities are called positive,
for it is merely the characterless, passive indefinite showing itself
in our experience. If negation meant only a general negation,
and if the perception of negation meant in each case the perception
of a general negation, then even where there is a jug on
the ground, one should perceive the negati