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I ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 1.
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cognition). But what, we ask, establishes the non-reality of jars and pieces of cloth ?-All are agreed, we reply, that we observe, in jars and similar things, individual difference (vyavritti, literally separation,' distinction'). The point to decide is of what nature such difference is. Does it not mean that the judgment .This is a jar' implies the negation of pieces of cloth and other things ? But this means that by this judgment pieces of cloth and other things are sublated (badhita). Individual difference (vyavritti) thus means the cessation (or absence), due to sublation, of certain objects of cognition, and it proves the non-reality of whatever has non-continuous existence; while on the other hand, pure Being, like the rope, persists non-sublated. Hence everything that is additional to pure Being is non-real. — This admits of being expressed in technical form. “Being' is real because it persists, as proved by the case of the rope in the snake-rope ; jars and similar things are non-real because they are non-continuous, as proved by the case of the snake that has the rope for its substrate.
From all this it follows that persisting consciousness only has real being ; it alone is.
Boing and Consciousness are one. Consciousness is
svayamprakasa. But, our adversary objects, as mere Being is the object of consciousness, it is different therefrom (and thus there exists after all difference' or 'plurality').-Not so, we reply. That there is no such thing as 'difference,' we have already shown above on the grounds that it is not the object of perception, and moreover incapable of definition. It cannot therefore be proved that 'Being' is the object of consciousness. Hence Consciousness itself is 'Being' --that which is.-This consciousness is self-proved, just because it is consciousness. Were it proved through something else, it would follow that like jars and similar things it is not consciousness. Nor can there be assumed, for consciousness, the need of another act of consciousness (through which its knowledge would be established); for
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