The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s3.t7.23

c7.s3.t7.23

“And besides: you assume a series of presentations, then “why do you not also take outward things, such as columns “and walls for granted?—You say, because we are conscious “of the presentation?—But we are also conscious of external “things!—Or do you say that we are conscious of the pre“sentations in themselves, because it is in their nature to “illumine, like a lamp, but not, on the other hand in the “nature of external things?—and so you take for granted that “which is in its nature an absolute contradiction, just as if “you said: ‘Fire burns itself up;’ but the general acceptation, “which does not contradict itself, that we are conscious of the “outward object, through the presentation which reaches beyond “itself [p. 574], you will not assume? Truly this is great wis“dom that you display! The presentation, in so far as it “extends beyond the object, is certainly not felt, for that would “be contrary to its own being.” [Here, as often before, the idea of the presentation changes into that of the presenting subject, and this is made easy by the use of the word *vijñānam*.]