Sarvadarshanasangraha 15.47

15.47

according to this principle, the immutability of the self would be ruined’ — that also does not hold. For the fluctuations that are the counterpositives of cessation, consisting in means of valid cognition, error, conceptual construction, sleep, and memory, are accepted to be attributes of the mind, which is synonymous with the internal organ and the like. The power of consciousness, immutable, eternal, and non-transforming, can never be the locus of cognitive attributes. Nor should it be considered that the non-transforming nature of the power of consciousness is unproven. For there are inferences such as: ‘The power of consciousness is non-transforming, because it is always a knower; whatever is not so is not so, like the mind and the like.’ Likewise, if this *puruṣa* were subject to transformation, then, because transformation is occasional, those fluctuations of the mind could not be constantly known. Since the inner, pure *sattva* of the *puruṣa*, whose nature is consciousness and who abides eternally as the presiding entity, is also ever-present, whenever it is colored by an object, that knowable object shines forth through the reflection of consciousness falling upon it; thus the detachment of the *puruṣa* is possible. And consequently, its constant knowership is established, so the doubt of its transformability never arises. The mind, on the other hand, knows an object by which it is colored, and does not know that by which it is not colored; thus, because it possesses the attributes of being colored and uncolored—which are the causes of knowing and not-knowing an entity that resembles a lodestone—the mind, sharing the nature of iron, is said to be transforming.