. the anta@hkara@na
goes out of the man's body (_s'ariramadhyat_) and coming in
touch with the jug becomes transformed into the same form,
and as soon as this transformation takes place the cit which
is always steadily shining illuminates the jug-form or the jug.
The jug phenomena in the objective world could not be manifested
(though these were taking place on the background of
the same self-luminous Brahman or atman as forms of the highest
truth of my subjective consciousness) because the ajnana phenomena
in these forms serve to veil their illuminator, the self-luminous.
It was only by coming into contact with these phenomena
that the anta@hkara@na could be transformed into corresponding
states and that the illumination dawned which at once revealed
the anta@hkara@na states and the objects with which these states or
v@rttis had coalesced. The consciousness manifested through the
v@rttis alone has the power of removing the ajnana veiling the
cit. Of course there are no actual distinctions of inner or outer,
or the cit within me and the cit without me. These are only of
appearance and due to avidya. And it is only from the point of
view of appearance that we suppose that knowledge of objects
can only dawn when the inner cit and the outer cit unite together
through the anta@hkara@nav@rtti, which makes the external objects
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translucent as it were by its own translucence, removes the ajnana
which was veiling the external self-luminous cit and reveals the
object phenomena by the very union of the cit as reflected
through it and the cit as underlying the object phenomena. The
pratyak@sa-prama or right knowledge by perception is the cit, the
pure consciousness, reflected through the v@rtti and identical with
the cit as the background of the object phenomena revealed by
it. From the relative point of view we may thus distinguish three
consciousnesses: (1) consciousness as the background of objective
phenomena, (2) consciousness as the background of the jiva
or pramata, the individual, (3) consciousness reflected in the v@rtti
of the anta@hkara@na; when these three unite perception is effected.
Prama or right knowledge means in Vedanta the acquirement
of such new knowledge as has not been contradicted by
experience (_abadhita_). There is thus no absolute definition of
truth. A knowledge acquired can be said to be true only so long
as it is not contradicted. Thus the world appearance though it
is very true now, may b
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