An Analysis of Dream in Indian Philosophy

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The present book compare & contrast the analysis of dream in Eastern tradition, especially as recorded in Indian philosophy and with that of the west. The range of the oresent book is Vedic literature and with nain branches of Indian philosophy namely Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimazais, Vedanta, Jainism, and Buddhism. This work tries to analyse a mental activity like dream in a concreate form, as far as possible. It deals with the Philosophical, Physiological, Ontological, Epistemological, and Metaphysical status of dream & its content. The book is published under Sri Garib Dass Oriental Series.

Satyajit Layek is at present lecturer in the Department of Sanskrit, University of Calcutta.

The present work is the thesis of Dr. Satyajit Layek which was accepted by the Poona University for the degree of Ph.D. The work was completed under my supervision. I am happy to see that it is being printed now.

In search of Truth, the Indian Philosophical systems have given a lot of thinking to the age-old question of Reality. Almost every system has to say something about it. Nobody denied the fact that one's behaviour depends upon clear knowledge of things technically called savikalpaka-jnana. Nobody could also deny that we come to know the existence of a thing through this knowledge (jnanadhina vastusatta). But they differed in holding the views whether the things shown by a clear knowledge are real or not. Neither the realists nor the idealists held different opinions regarding cognitions having objects.

Everything in the world of ours is momentary and thereby everything results into pain (sarbam duhkham). There is nothing called permanent pleasure, according to them.

As against this the Advaitins held the view that although it is a fact that everything in this world is momentary, still there is some- thing called the highest Truth or Brahman or Bliss which is permanent. Thus, they felt the necessity to establish three kinds of realities called Vyavaharika-satta, Pratibhasika-satta, and På ramarthika-satta. As long as we are behaving with things we are required to accept those things as real; these things are said to have vyavaharika-satta. The pratibhasika-satta exists in a thing which has existence during the duration of its cognition alone. And the ultimate reality is the paramarthika-satta, but when I see silver on a conch-shell, it has existence only for the duration of the cognition of the silver after seeing a conch-shell and thus it has pratibhasika- satta or jnanaika-satta. That which is true for past, present and future is the ultimate Truth and that has paramarthika-satta.