Self-Awareness (རང་རིག་, svasaṃvedana)
Self-awareness or self-cognition is a foundational principle in dignaga’s epistemology. It appears both as one of the four types of perception and, more fundamentally, as a characterisation of all cognition whatsoever.
Definitions
Dignāga (Pramāṇasamuccaya)
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): རང་རིག་ (svasaṃvedana) — self-awareness / self-cognition
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): The reflexive factor of every cognition by which consciousness is aware of itself — the result (ཚད་མའི་འབྲས་བུ་, pramāṇaphala) of every act of cognition
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): Any perception — insofar as it is aware of itself as perceiving — is an instance of self-cognition
“The result is said [by Dignāga] to be self-cognition, for when one considers the nature of [self-cognition] it is identical with cognition of an object.”
For Dignāga, self-cognition is not a special type of awareness but the self-revealing aspect of every mental episode. It establishes that cognition is luminous — it illuminates both its object and itself (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 347; katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Source: pramanasamuccaya, I; dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 347
Dharmakīrti (Pramāṇavārttika)
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): རང་རིག་ (svasaṃvedana) — self-awareness
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): The intuitive presence (self-presencing) of every mental episode to itself — consciousness understands its own nature by itself
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): [not given explicitly in source]
“The [mind] understands by itself its own nature.”
Self-cognition is the intuitive presence that we feel toward our own mental episodes. It is not a separate act of cognition directed at a prior mental state (which would generate infinite regress) but the self-revealing character intrinsic to every instance of awareness (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 348).
Source: pramanavartika; dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 348
Pre-Dignāga Usage
The terms svasaṃvedana and svasaṃvedya occur in Buddhist literature before Dignāga, referring to the mystical awareness of practitioners in meditation. Dignāga repurposed the concept for his epistemological system (katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Two Senses in Dignāga
Katsura identifies two distinct usages of self-awareness in Dignāga’s epistemology (katsura-dignaga-lectures):
1. As the Result of Cognition (pramāṇaphala)
Dignāga analyses the cognitive event into three components: the means of cognition (pramāṇa), the object of cognition (prameya), and the result of cognition (pramāṇaphala). Within this framework:
- Cognition arises with two appearances (dvirūpa, རྣམ་པ་གཉིས་): that of the object (arthābhāsa/grāhyākāra) and that of cognition itself (svābhāsa/grāhakākāra)
- The object of cognition is the appearance of the object in cognition
- The means of cognition is the appearance of cognition itself
- The result of cognition is self-awareness: since perception’s object is its own appearance-as-object, the result can only be “cognition of itself”
This twofold-appearance theory recalls the traditional Yogācāra scheme of the objective aspect (grāhyākāra) and the subjective aspect (grāhakākāra). dharmakirti endorses this view in Ch.1 of the Pramāṇaviniścaya (katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Crucially, Dignāga notes in PS I.10 (quoted by Xuanzang) that the threefold division is metaphorical — no actual action (vyāpāra) is involved in the process of cognition; the names pramāṇa, prameya, and pramāṇaphala are given only figuratively.
2. As the Essential Operation of All Cognition
Even if external reality is presupposed, perception is self-awareness: since perception arises with the form/appearance of an object, it is always “cognition of its own appearance of the object.” This extends beyond perception to conceptions as well — every cognition is characterised by self-awareness (katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Self-Awareness as Perception
In Dignāga’s classification, self-awareness appears twice among the types of perception:
- Mental perception in the form of self-awareness of mental events such as desire — since these cognitions cannot be classified under “object-awareness” (artha-saṃvedana), they must be a sort of self-awareness
- Self-awareness of concepts — conception is not perception when taken as object-awareness, but it is perception when analysed as self-awareness
The second point has a profound consequence: if conception in the form of self-awareness counts as perception, then all cognitions are perceptions insofar as they are self-awareness. dharmakirti in his Nyāyabindu accordingly identifies svasaṃvedana with self-awareness of all kinds of mind and mental events (katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Sākāravijñānavāda
Self-awareness is grounded in Dignāga’s epistemological position of sākāravijñānavāda — the doctrine that cognition (vijñāna) arises with a form/shape (sākāra) of its object. This is formally expressed in the Ālambanapārīkṣā, which establishes two conditions for an objective support (ālambana):
- It must be a cause of its cognition (tadutpatti)
- It must have a form similar to its cognition (tatsārūpya)
The second condition implies that cognition must have a form similar to its object — the core commitment of sākāravijñānavāda (katsura-dignaga-lectures).
Gelug vs. Non-Gelug: What Rang-rig Cognizes
A significant difference between the traditions concerns the objects that reflexive awareness (rang-rig) cognizes (berzin-science-of-mind, Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects):
Gelug (Basic Distinctions, via Akya Yongdzin): Reflexive awareness is part of each moment of cognition and takes only the consciousness and mental factors of the cognition that it is part of as its objects. It allows for later recollection (dran-shes) of the cognition. It does not cognize the external objects of the cognition.
Within conceptual-cognition, the mental exclusions (conceptual categories) in the cognition are the involved objects of reflexive awareness — because these categories share the same essential nature (ngo-bo) as the conceptual consciousness and mental factors that cognize them. Mental exclusions are implicitly apprehended only by reflexive awareness, not by the mental consciousness of the conceptual cognition itself.
Non-Gelug (Gorampa, dreyfus-recognizing-reality): Reflexive awareness is the cognizer aspect (‘dzin-rnam) of a cognition that experiences the essential nature of itself (rang-gi ngo-bo). This means it takes as its objects everything that shares the same essential nature as the entire cognition it is part of, including its objects — a broader scope than the Gelug position.
Recollection and the Function of Rang-rig
For the Gelug tradition, a crucial function of reflexive awareness is enabling later recollection. Since rang-rig accompanies every moment of cognition and takes the cognition itself as its object, when we later recall “I remember seeing a red apple,” this recollection is possible because rang-rig has registered the cognition at the time it occurred. Without this reflexive dimension, there would be no basis for episodic memory (berzin-science-of-mind).
Sources
- katsura-dignaga-lectures — detailed discussion of both senses of svasaṃvedana, twofold appearance theory, connection to sākāravijñānavāda
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — treated in the context of perception theory; Gorampa’s position
- berzin-science-of-mind — Gelug vs. non-Gelug on the scope of rang-rig; function in enabling recollection; rang-rig and mental exclusions in conceptual cognition