1.49 · This One Pebble

Its object differs from that of insight drawn from learning and inference, because its object is the particular.

Word by word

śruta

what is heard: learning, scripture

anumāna

inference

prajñābhyām

than the insight from these two

anya-viṣayā

having a different object

viśeṣa-arthatvāt

because its object is the particular

Where it fits

Vyāsa presents this as a further mark of that wisdom (Woods p. 94). Testimony and inference, two sources of valid knowing in 1.7, reach only the general; this wisdom grasps the particular. Valid knowing, itself a movement to be stilled (1.6), is outdone by direct insight. 1.50 says what that insight leaves behind.

Reading

Truth-bearing insight knows something learning and inference cannot. Vyāsa explains: words and reasoning deal in general classes. A word is fixed by convention for a kind of thing, never for this one thing, and inference concludes only in general terms. The particular, the unique nature of a subtle element or of the self, can be known only in concentrated insight. This does not dismiss study and thought, which 1.48 called supports. It shows where they stop.

Vyāsa

“Learning is knowledge from testimony, and its objects are general. For testimony cannot name a particular. … Inference too deals only with what is general. … So the particular, whether in a subtle element or in the self, can be grasped only by the wisdom of absorption.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 94–95.

Practice

Choose one common thing, a pebble, a leaf, a grain of rice, and spend five minutes finding everything that makes this one different from all the others of its kind. Notice how few words you have for what you find.

A question to sit with

What do you know only in general that you could know up close?

Key ideas

prajñā (wisdom)