incomplete manifestation of the bliss in our phenomenal
experiences of pleasure. The ajnana is one, but it seems to obstruct
the pure cit in various aspects or modes, with regard to which it
may be said that the ajnana has many states as constituting the
individual experiences of the indefinite with reference to the
diverse individual objects of experience. These states of ajnana
are technically called tulajnana or avasthajnana. Any state of
consciousness (v@rttijnana) removes a manifestation of the ajnana
as tulajnana and reveals itself as the knowledge of an object.

The most important action of this ajnana as obstructing the
pure cit, and as creating an illusory phenomenon is demonstrated
in the notion of the ego or aha@mkara. This notion of aha@mkara
is a union of the true self, the pure consciousness and other
associations, such as the body, the continued past experiences, etc.;
it is the self-luminous characterless Brahman that is found obstructed
in the notion of the ego as the repository of a thousand
limitations, characters, and associations. This illusory creation of
the notion of the ego runs on from beginningless time, each set
of previous false impositions determining the succeeding set of
impositions and so on. This blending of the unreal associations
held up in the mind (_anta@hkara@na_) with the real, the false with

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the true, that is at the root of illusion. It is the anta@hkara@na taken
as the self-luminous self that reflects itself in the cit as the notion
of the ego. Just as when we say that the iron ball (red hot) burns,
there are two entities of the ball and the fire fused into one,
so, here also when I say "I perceive", there are two distinct elements
of the self, as consciousness and the mind or antahkarana fused
into one. The part or aspect associated with sorrow, materiality,
and changefulness represents the anta@hkara@na, whereas that which
appears as the unchangeable perceiving consciousness is the self.
Thus the notion of ego contains two parts, one real and other
unreal.

We remember that this is distinctly that which Prabhakara
sought to repudiate. Prabhakara did not consider the self to be
self-luminous, and held that such is the threefold nature of thought
(_tripu@ti_), that it at once reveals the knowledge, the
object of knowledge, and the self. He further said, that the
analogy of the red-hot iron ball did not hold, for the iron ball
and the fire are separately experienced,