________________
AN EPITOME OF JAINISM. object of knowledge and hence the notion of the Not-self cannot be put into the self which is knowledge or consciousness itself.
Then again it is not true that the notion of one object can always and invariably be put into another object whereever the latter might happen to be. The fact is that by subreption (mithyåtva) we put the notion of some object already observed elsewhere into another object which is situate before us. To illustrate by example, when we put the notion of silver into the mother of pearl lying before us, we have an object into which the notion of silver is put by subreption and which has an existence quite distinct and separate from us and before us whence it follows that it is into an object situate before him that any one puts the notion of another object observed by him previously elsewhere. But in the case of bondage, how is it possible to put the notion of the body into the self filled in us from within : for this self is our inward self and how can it be said to have a separate existence situated before us ; rather it transcends all the connotations of the nonego as being not an object of knowledge.
546
