Argument
IPVV — Vol 1, Chunk D: ARGUMENT MAP (memory, the eternal knower, the pramāṇa)
MACHINE_DRAFT · 2 premises
Question. How can the self be the *eternal* knower, if memory reaches only what one has experienced — and the Rāmāyaṇa was composed by Vālmīki long ago, whom "I" was not? The objection: "I was not at the time of the Rāmāyaṇa." Abhinavagupta answers that the *param-essence knower* — the consciousness-self — is un-cut by all three times; the "I" that was not at that time is only the present body, not the self. Memory itself, he shows, presupposes the eternal knower.
Issue. **The question:** How can the self be the *eternal* knower, if memory reaches only what one has
experienced — and the Rāmāyaṇa was composed by Vālmīki long ago, whom "I" was not? The objection: "I
was not at the time of the Rāmāyaṇa." Abhinavagupta answers that the *param-essence knower* — the
consciousness-self — is un-cut by all three times; the "I" that was not at that time is only the
present body, not the self. Memory itself, he shows, presupposes the eternal knower.
Premises
The Rāmāyaṇa objection
If memory reaches only the experienced, then "I was not at the time of the Rāmāyaṇa" — for that time
was not experienced by me. If it is said "from the āgama we know that time," then the āgama too
presupposes the experiencer's experience. But Vālmīki was the experiencer then, not "I." The question
is apt; but the *aham-vimarśa* (the "I"-recollection) of the consciousness-nature is established as
eternal, to this extent. And he is the one param-essence knower; if the other-breaths-minds-
eight-fold-city-bodies are distinct, the knower-distinction is made by their difference. So the "this
body was not at that time" is the truth here [not "I was not"]. At the dissolution and the beginning of
creation, "we were not" — else the special-time-reference would not be. In the "we were not" cognition
The eternal knower
Where the conceit of the experiencer is firm in the body, there the memory-ness is clear. Enough: it is
established that the self's manifestation is not un-precedented (apūrva). The apūrvatva is by being;
the apūrva-prakāśatva by the attainment. The self's non-being-before, nor the experience-of-the-
existent — in truth, the being-ness rests in the manifestation, so the being-priority rests in the
manifestation's un-precedented-ness — hence the sāmānādhikaraṇya (co-reference) is fit. The "cakāra" is
not used. The knower's apūrva-prakāśatva-dealing is not without the prior knower (it needs the
memory of the prior time); without it, the being's pervader (the non-dependence on that form) would
fail — like the cloth without the clay-lump. So the knower's apūrva-prakāśatva presupposes the
etern
Unresolved. 1. The Gītā 2.12 citation (the "I was never not") — the load-bearing confirmation; cited, the exact
textual frame preserved.
2. The "atiśiśutā-padānabhūta iva yūnaḥ" (the young man who was not yet a child) — the memory-
clarity example; kept as Abhinava's.
Strength: MACHINE_DRAFT · Status: MACHINE_DRAFT · packet JSON
Sources & corrections: edit source →. packet lives here.