non-continuousness of the snake. In the same way the reality of the rope
does not follow from its persistence, but from the fact of its being not
sublated (by another cognition). But what, we ask, establishes the
non-reality of jars and pieces of cloth?--All are agreed, we reply, that
we observe, in jars and similar things, individual difference
(vyavritti, literally 'separation,' 'distinction'). The point to decide
is of what nature such difference is. Does it not mean that the judgment
'This is a jar' implies the negation of pieces of cloth and other
things? But this means that by this judgment pieces of cloth and other
things are sublated (badhita). Individual difference (vyavritti) thus
means the cessation (or absence), due to sublation, of certain objects
of cognition, and it proves the non-reality of whatever has
non-continuous existence; while on the other hand, pure Being, like the
rope, persists non-sublated. Hence everything that is additional to pure
Being is non-real.--This admits of being expressed in technical form.
'Being' is real because it persists, as proved by the case of the rope
in the snake-rope; jars and similar things are non-real because they are
non-continuous, as proved by the case of the snake that has the rope for
its substrate.

From all this it follows that persisting consciousness only has real
being; it alone is.

Being and consciousness are one. Consciousness is svayamprakasa.

But, our adversary objects, as mere Being is the object of consciousness,
it is different therefrom (and thus there exists after all 'difference'
or 'plurality').--Not so, we reply. That there is no such thing as
'difference,' we have already shown above on the grounds that it is not
the object of perception, and moreover incapable of definition. It