What is called pratyayamarśa is a kind of inner formulation in words (abhilāpa, śabdana). This inner formulation does not depend upon any convention, just as fornuilation in uttered or manifested words does. That is why the new-born baby is also capable of doing it. It has also the "I consciousness which presupposes this formulation. This is why it can act in order to fulfill its needs. This consciousness of the self is a kind of inner delight (avicchinna-camatkāra-ātmakam). It is a kind of inner nodding of the head (antarmukha-śironirdeśaprakhyam). It is the background or the source of such states of consciousness as find expression in words like ' this is blue' 'I am Caitra', and so on, the essence of which is the use of uttered conventional speech which arises in the māyā stage.[2] [Italics mine.]

　　  The above view of the nature of consciousness is a revolutionary one; it stands opposed to the views of Advaita Vedānta and the Sāṁkhya. It seems to suggest that a sort of innate, subconscious conceptual structure characterizes the mind. It seems as if the Pratyabhijñā system were groping toward more or less the Kantian view of the understanding or mind. Another possible interpretation is that the mind identifies objects as meaningful wholes, so as to react purposefull to them, this would seem to be an anticipation of the Gestalt view of perception. Utpaladeva also maintains that the 'I' consciousness is the very essence of illuminating light or knowledge. This also sounds Kantian. Utpala, however, adds that the 'I' consciousness, though it involves Vāk or speech, is not to be looked upon as a construction (vikaipa) of the intellect. The reason given is that in a vikalpa, there is always a differentiation of what the object of cognition is from what is not.[3] The awareness involving vikalpa always refers to more than one entity. This view of 'I' consciousness is again different from that of Advaita Vedānta, according to which that consciousness involves adhyāsa, which is a form of erroneous, vikalpa-consciousness.

　　 The conception of parā vāk in Bhartṛhari and in the Śaiva system suffers from obscurity. The really significant elements in the Pratyabhijñā conception of consciousness are two. First, here consciousness is conceived to be of the nature of vimarśa or parāmarśa which seems to connote creative freedom or free creativity. According to the system itself this characteristic of consciousness accounts for the world appearance produced by Maheśvara. The second important element in the conception is the attribution of  ānanda to consciousness. This ānanda is identified with camatkāra in Abhinavagupta's aesthetic theory. This implies that the act of disinterested awareness, which constitutes

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the essence of poetic creation and comprehension, is in itself delightful and is associated with camafkura by Abhinavagupta in his Vimarśinī on 1.5.13.[4]

　　 We have cited the preceding views of consciousness by way of illustration, Interesting discussions about self-cognition may be found in the two schools of Mīmāṁsā as well. Of course the Buddhist view of the self as the aggregate or unity of the skandhas has extraordinary interest for the modern mind and the modern age, with its antisubstance bias.

IV

Much of Indian epistemology, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina, remains meaningful for modern students of philosophy. Indian thinkers had no acquaintance with any discipline comparable to modern physics; for this reason their discussions remain close to commensensical experience and everyday language. They also seem to supplement the problems posed and discussions conducted by the Greek and the medieval thinkers. Those who believed in the existence of individual souls raised the problem of the perception or cognition of the self. Was the self perceptible, or was it known only through inference? Here the Advaita Vedānta, the two schools of Mīmāṁsā and the Naiyāyikas as well as some of the devotional schools of  Vedānta have a good deal to say. Indian logic centers largely around the problems of the nature and validity of perceptual and inferential cognitions, though the questions regarding the nature and validity of knowledge as such also claim a good deal of attention. The definitions of perceptual cognition given by Diṅnāga (pratyakṣam kaipanā padham) and the latter Naiyāyikas (jnãnākaraṇakam jñãnam) are probably the most critical definitions in the whole range of world philosophy. Viewed in the perspective of the metaphysical controversies sparked off by Diṅnāga's definition, Russell's treatment of "knowledge by acquaintance" appears to be insufficiently rigorous. Russell speaks of acquaintance not only with the sense-data (the Buddhist's svalakṣa ṇas), but also with self and with acquaintance itself; he even talks of awareness of universals, thus demolishing the distinc­tion between perceptual and conceptual knowledge.[5] Russell does not distinguish between sensory perception and what may be called inspection, nor does he reflect on the dependence of the latter on the former. Though an. empiricist, Russell evinces no such distrust of conceptual knowledge as did the Buddhist thinkers, both realists and idealists, do.