Against this our opponent may now argue as follows:--There is, after all, something, called avidyâ, or ajñâna, or by some other name, which is a positive entity (bhâva), different from the antecedent non-existence of knowledge; which effects the obscuration of the Real; which is the material cause of the erroneous superimposition on the Real, of manifold external and internal things; and which is terminated by the cognition of the true nature of the one substance which constitutes Reality. For this avidyâ is apprehended through Perception as well as Inference. Brahman, in so far as limited by this avidyâ, is the material cause of the erroneous superimposition--upon the inward Self, which in itself is changeless pure intelligence, but has its true nature obscured by this superimposition--of that plurality which comprises the ahamkâra, all acts of knowledge and all objects of knowledge. Through special forms of this defect (i.e. avidyâ) there are produced, in this world superimposed upon Reality, the manifold special superimpositions presenting themselves in the form of things and cognitions of things--such as snakes (superimposed upon ropes), silver (superimposed on shells), and the like. Avidyâ constitutes the material cause of this entire false world; since for a false thing we must needs infer a false cause. That this avidyâ or ajñâna (non-knowledge) is an object of internal Perception, follows from the fact that judgments such as 'I do not know', 'I do not know either myself or others,' directly present themselves to the mind. A mental state of this kind has for its object not that non- knowledge which is the antecedent non-existence of knowledge--for such absence of knowledge is ascertained by the sixth means of proof (anupalabdhi); it rather is a state which presents its object directly, and thus is of the same kind as the state expressed in the judgment 'I am experiencing pleasure.' Even if we admit that 'absence of something' (abhâva) can be the object of perception, the state of consciousness under discussion cannot have absence of knowledge in the Self for its object. For at the very moment of such consciousness knowledge exists; or if it does not exist there can be no consciousness of the absence of knowledge. To explain. When I am conscious that I am non-knowing, is there or is there not apprehension of the Self as having non-existence of knowledge for its attribute, and of knowledge as the counterentity of non-knowledge? In the former case there can be no consciousness of the absence of knowledge, for that would imply a contradiction. In the latter case, such consciousness can all the less exist, for it presupposes knowledge of that to which absence of knowledge belongs as an attribute (viz. the Self) and of its own counterentity, viz. knowledge. The same difficulty arises if we view the absence of knowledge as either the object of Inference, or as the object of the special means of proof called 'abhâva' (i.e. anupalabdhi).