Hence the ahamkâra is no more a knower than it is something subjective; otherwise there would be an evident contradiction. As knowing cannot be attributed to the ahamkâra, which is an object of knowledge, so knowership also cannot be ascribed to it; for of that also it is the object. Nor can it be maintained that to be a knower is something essentially changing. For to be a knower is to be the substrate of the quality of knowledge, and as the knowing Self is eternal, knowledge which is an essential quality of the Self is also eternal. That the Self is eternal will be declared in the Sûtra, II, 3, 17; and in II, 3, 18 the term 'jña' (knower) will show that it is an essential quality of the Self to be the abode of knowledge. That a Self whose essential nature is knowledge should be the substrate of the (quality of) knowledge--just as gems and the like are the substrate of light--gives rise to no contradiction whatever. Knowledge (the quality) which is in itself unlimited, is capable of contraction and expansion, as we shall show later on. In the so-called kshetrajña--condition of the Self, knowledge is, owing to the influence of work (karman), of a contracted nature, as it more or less adapts itself to work of different kinds, and is variously determined by the different senses. With reference to this various flow of knowledge as due to the senses, it is spoken of as rising and setting, and the Self possesses the quality of an agent. As this quality is not, however, essential, but originated by action, the Self is essentially unchanging. This changeful quality of being a knower can belong only to the Self whose essential nature is knowledge; not possibly to the non-intelligent ahamkâra. But, you will perhaps say, the ahamkâra, although of non- intelligent nature, may become a knower in so far as by approximation to intelligence it becomes a reflection of the latter. How, we ask in return, is this becoming a reflection of intelligence imagined to take place? Does consciousness become a reflection of the ahamkâra, or does the ahamkâra become a reflection of consciousness? The former alternative is inadmissible, since you will not allow to consciousness the quality of being a knower; and so is the latter since, as explained above, the non-intelligent ahamkâra can never become a knower. Moreover, neither consciousness nor the ahamkâra are objects of visual perception. Only things seen by the eye have reflections.--Let it then be said that as an iron ball is heated by contact with fire, so the consciousness of being a knower is imparted to the ahamkâra through its contact with Intelligence.--This view too is inadmissible; for as you do not allow real knowership to Intelligence, knowership or the consciousness of knowership cannot be imparted to the ahamkâra by contact with Intelligence; and much less even can knowership or the consciousness of it be imparted to Intelligence by contact with the essentially non- intelligent ahamkâra.