Page:The Vedanta-sutras, with the Sri-bhashya of Ramanujacharya.djvu/30

 thing and its qualifying attribute is shown to be wrong (pp. 53-60.). Next the position that perception must apprehend pure unqualified existence, in as much as it cannot have differentiation for its object and in as much as it is difficult to define differentiation, is taken into con- sideration and criticised ; and it is argued in reply that perception does apprehend distinctions, that distinctions so apprehended establish the difference, not only be- tween one qualified thing and another, but also between the distinguishing attributes themselves, and that there- fore the apprehension of particularity has necessarily to be admitted in connection with every state of con- sciousness. It is further shown that the senses, which naturally cannot perceive pure unqualified existence, perceive only the configurations of the attributes of things, and that it is these configurations that con- stitute the logical genera and at the same time denote whatever forms the distinction between things (pp. 60-64.). Then it is pointed out how it is erroneous to hold that jars and other such specific objects are unreal, the reason for their unreality being that they do not persist before con- sciousness in all perceptions, and how again it is not possible for experience or consciousness to be the same as the one unqualified and absolute existence (pp. 64-65.).

Afterwards the self-luminous character of experience is properly explained, and it is shown how experience does not cease to be experience when it becomes cap- able of being itself experienced (pp. 65-67.). The con- tention that experience or consciousness has the character of an unoriginated entity is then contradicted. It is argued that the absence of what is called the antecedent non- existence of experience does not prove its unoriginated character, because there is no rule which binds experience