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172 Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [en. agent of the act of cognition and be a knower, and therefore it is only the changeful modifications of prakyti, the category of ahankāra, to which can be ascribed the capacity of being a knower. This ahankära is the inner organ (antahkarana) or mind, and this alone can be called a knower; for the agency of an act of cognition is an objective and dependent characteristic, and, as such, cannot belong to the self. If the agency and the possibility of being characterized by the notion of ego could be ascribed to the self, such a self would have only a dependent existence and be nonspiritual, like the body, since it would be non-self-revealing. Rāmānuja, in answer to such an objection, says that, if the word ahankūra is used in the sense of antahkurana, or the mind, as an inner organ, then it has all the non-spiritual characteristics of the body and it can never be considered as the knower. The capacity of being a knower (jñātrtra) is not a changeful characteristic (vikriyāt maka), since it simply ineans the possession of the quality of consciousness (jñana-gunāšraya), and knowledge, being the natural quality of the eternal self, is also eternal. Though the self is itself of the nature of consciousness (jnūna-starūpa), yet, just as one entity of light exists both as the light and as the rays emanating from it, so can it be regarded both as consciousness and as the possessor of consciousness (muni-prabhrtīnām prabhāśruyatram ira jñanāšrayuttam api aviruddham). Consciousness, though unlimited of itself (szayam aparicchinnam eva jñānam), can contract as well as expand (sankocavikūšūrham). In an embodied self it is in a contracted state (sarkucita-starūpam) through the influence of actions (karmaņā), and is possessed of varying degrees of expansion. To the individual it is spoken of as having more or less knowledge, according as it is determined by the sense-organs. Thus one can speak of the rise of knowledge or its cessation. When there is the rise of knowledge, one can certainly designate it as the knower. So it is admitted that this capacity as knower is not natural to the self, but due to karma, and therefore, though the self is knower in itself, it is changeless in its aspect as consciousness. But it can never be admitted that the nonspiritual ahankūra could be the knower by virtue of its being in contact with consciousness (cit); for consciousness as such can never be regarded as a knower. The aharkāra also is not the knower, and therefore the notion of the knower could not be explained on such a
1 Śri-bhāsya, p. 45.
