he object being known first. To this Vedanta
replies that the maxim that the qualification must be known
before the qualified thing is known is groundless, for we can as
well perceive the thing first and then its qualification. It is not
out of place here to say that negation is not a separate entity,
but is only a peculiar mode of the manifestation of the positive.
Even the naiyayikas would agree that in the expression "there
is no negation of a jug here," no separate negation can be accepted,
for the jug is already present before us. As there are distinctions
and differences in positive entities by illusory impositions, so
negations are also distinguished by similar illusory impositions
and appear as the negation of jug, negation of cloth, etc.; so all
distinctions between negations are unnecessary, and it may be
accepted that negation like position is one which appears as many
on account of illusory distinctions and impositions. Thus the

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content of negation being itself positive, there is no reason to
object that such perceptions as "I do not know" refer to the
perception of an indefinite ajnana in consciousness. So also the
perception "I do not know what you say" is not the perception
of negation, for this would require that the hearer should know
first what was said by the speaker, and if this is so then it is
impossible to say "I do not know what you say."

So also the cognition "I was sleeping long and did not
know anything" has to be admitted as referring to the perception
of the indefinite during sleep. It is not true as some say that
during sleep there is no perception, but what appears to the
awakened man as "I did not know anything so long" is only an
inference; for, it is not possible to infer from the pleasant and
active state of the senses in the awakened state that the activity
had ceased in the sleep state and that since he had no object of
knowledge then, he could not know anything; for there is no
invariable concomitance between the pleasant and active state of
the senses and the absence of objects of knowledge in the immediately
preceding state. During sleep there is a mental state
of the form of the indefinite, and during the awakened state it is
by the impression (_sa@mskara_) of the aforesaid mental state of
ajnana that one remembers that state and says that "I did not
perceive anything so long." The indefinite (_ajnana_) perceived in
consciousness is more fundamental and general than t