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II ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 15.
449
how bondage is to be put an end to, which one might have heard in a dream. Or, to put the matter again from a different point of view, Brahman constituted by pure non-differenced intelligence is false, since it is to be attained by knowledge, which is the effect of avidya ; or since it is to be attained by knowledge abiding in knowing subjects who are mere figments of avidyâ; or because it is attained through knowledge which is the mere figment of avidya. For whatever is attained through knowledge of that kind is false ; as e.g. the things seen in dreams or a town of the Gandharvas (Fata Morgana).
Nor does Brahman, constituted by pure non-differenced intelligence, shine forth by itself, so as not to need-for its cognition—other means of knowledge. And that that self-luminous knowledge which you declare to be borne witness to by itself, really consists in the knowledge of particular objects of knowledge—such knowledge abiding in particular cognising subjects—this also has been proved previously. And the different arguments which were set forth as proving Brahman's non-differenced nature, are sufficiently refuted by what we have said just now as to all such arguments themselves being the products of avidya.
Nor again is there any sense in the theory that the principle of non-differenced intelligence 'witnesses 'avidya, and implicates itself in the error of the world. For wit. nessing' and error are observed to abide only in definite conscious subjects, not in consciousness in general. Nor can that principle of pure intelligence be proved to possess illumining power or light depending on itself only. For by light (enlightenment) we can understand nothing but definite well-established knowledge (siddhi) on the part of some knowing subject with regard to some particular object. It is on this basis only that you yourself prove the self-illuminedness of your universal principle; to an absolutely non-differenced intelligence not implying the distinction of subject and object such svayamprakåsata' could not possibly belong. With regard again to what you so loudly proclaim at your meetings, viz. that real effects are seen to spring even from unreal causes, we point [48]
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