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Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [CH.
if all objects of the world have separate and different ajñāna materials as their causes, then it is wrong to suppose that the illusory silver is produced by the ajñāna of the conch-shell. It would be much better to say that the ajñāna of the subject (pramātā) as it comes out with the antaḥkaraṇa has produced the illusory silver. Again, if the ajñāna of the conch-shell is regarded as beginningless, it is meaningless to regard it as being a modification of a groundajñāna, and if it is not regarded as a mode its perception cannot be explained.
There are again others who hold that the ajñāna constituting an external object in some sense subsists in the subject as well and thus there may be a connection between the subject and the object. To this Mahācārya says that such a view is impossible, for the consciousness underlying the object is different from that underlying the subject; and if it is held that pure consciousness is ultimately one, then all objects ought to be illuminated just as much as any particular object is illuminated at the time of any particular cognition. Again, if the consciousness underlying the objects and the subject is without any distinction, why should a man know himself to be ignorant when he says "I am ignorant"? There is no reason why this feeling of ignorance should be felt in the subject and not in the object when the consciousness underlying them are one and the same. Moreover, in that case where one person knows an object, there would be a knowledge of that object with all persons.
There are again others who say that the ajñana constituent of the conch-shell has the consciousness underlying the ego-experience as its support and the consciousness underlying the conchshell as its object. To this Mahācārya says that the ajñāna supported by the consciousness underlying the ego-experience cannot undergo transformation, and, if this is so, it cannot explain the diverse objects.
There are others again who think that when a man says that he does not know the conch-shell his ignorance refers to the rootajñāna; for though the ajñāna refers to the pure consciousness, that being identical with the pure consciousness underlying the conchshell, the ajñāna also refers to the conch-shell and may be so apprehended. One has also to admit that the illusory silver is also made up of the stuff of ajñāna, for since the illusory silver appears in perception, it must have some stuff as its material cause.
To this Mahācārya's reply is that if the apperception of self
