Nor, in the second place, can 'difference' be held to be an attribute
(dharma). For if it were that, we should have to assume that
'difference' possesses difference (i.e. is different) from essential
nature; for otherwise it would be the same as the latter. And this
latter difference would have to be viewed as an attribute of the first
difference, and this would lead us on to a third difference, and so in
infinitum. And the view of 'difference' being an attribute would further
imply that difference is apprehended on the apprehension of a thing
distinguished by attributes such as generic character and so on, and at
the same time that the thing thus distinguished is apprehended on the
apprehension of difference; and this would constitute a logical seesaw.--
'Difference' thus showing itself incapable of logical definition, we are
confirmed in our view that perception reveals mere 'Being' only.

Moreover, it appears that in states of consciousness such as 'Here is a
jar,' 'There is a piece of cloth,' 'The jar is perceived,' 'The piece of
cloth is perceived,' that which constitutes the things is Being
(existence; satta) and perception (or 'consciousness'; anubhuti). And we
observe that it is pure Being only which persists in all states of
cognition: this pure Being alone, therefore, is _real_. The differences,
on the other hand, which do not persist, are unreal. The case is
analogous to that of the snake-rope. The rope which persists as a
substrate is real, while the non-continuous things (which by wrong
imagination are superimposed on the rope) such as a snake, a cleft in
the ground, a watercourse, and so on, are unreal.

But--our adversary objects--the instance is not truly analogous. In the
case of the snake-rope the non-reality of the snake results from the
snake's being sublated (badhita) by the cognition of the true nature of
the substrate 'This is a rope, not a snake'; it does not result from the