We have many times spoken of truth or reality as self-luminous (svayamprakas’a).  But what does this mean?  Vedanta defines it as that which is never the object of a knowing act but is yet immediate and direct with us (avedyatve sati aparoksavyavaharayogyatvam_).  Self-luminosity thus means the capacity of being ever present in all our acts of consciousness without in any way being an object of consciousness.  Whenever anything is described as an object of consciousness, its character as constituting its knowability is a quality, which may or may not be present in it, or may be present at one time and absent at another.  This makes it dependent on some other such entity which can produce it or manifest it.  Pure consciousness differs from all its objects in this that it is never dependent on anything else for its manifestation, but manifests all other objects such as the jug, the cloth, etc.  If consciousness should require another consciousness to manifest it, then that might again require another, and that another, and so on ad infinitum (anavastha).  If consciousness did not manifest itself at the time of the object-manifestation, then even on seeing or knowing a thing one might doubt if he had seen or known it.  It is thus to be admitted that consciousness (anubhuti) manifests itself and thereby maintains the appearance

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[Footnote 1:  Vedanta would have either pratijna, hetu and udaharana, or udahara@na, upanaya and nigamana, and not all the five of Nyaya, viz. pratijna, hetu, udahara@na, upanaya and nigamana.]

[Footnote 2:  Vedantic notions of the pramana of upamana, arthapatti, s’abda and anupalabdhi, being similar to the mimam@sa view, do not require to be treated here separately.]

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of all our world experience.  This goes directly against the jnatata theory of Kumarila that consciousness was not immediate but was only inferable from the manifesting quality (jnatata) of objects when they are known in consciousness.

Now Vedanta says that this self-luminous pure consciousness is the same as the self.  For it is only self which is not the object of any knowledge and is yet immediate and ever present in consciousness.  No one doubts about his own self, because it is of itself manifested along with all states of knowledge.  The self itself is the revealer of all objects of knowledge, but is never itself the object of knowledge, for what appears as the perceiving of self as object of knowledge is but association comprehended under the term aha@mkara (ego).  The real self is identical with the pure manifesting unity of all consciousness.  This real self called the atman is not the same as the jiva or individual soul, which passes through the diverse experiences of worldly life.  Is’vara also must be distinguished from this highest atman or Brahman.  We have already seen that many Vedantists draw a distinction