Consciousness in visishtadvaita

[Martin Gansten]

Dear Mani,

Thanks for your reply. However, I wished to know specifically if the two
kinds of knowledge (svarupa- and dharmabhuta-) are mentioned explicitly in
any of Ramanuja's writings. Do you know?

>In Visishtadvaita, there are two kinds of consciosness,
>attributive and substantive.  [...]
>Fundamentally, the individual self is a "knower", not mere
>knowledge as held in schools of Advaita.  The substantive
>consciousness is how the self knows itself [...]
>The attributive consciousness is how the self knows things
>other than itself.  [...]
>So van Buitenen's statement is correct.

But it seems to me that what you just said above contradicts van Buitenen's
statement. You say (like Desika et al.) that there is a substantive
consciousness, different from the attributive consciousness. Surely this
means that the *substance* of the jiva is consciousness? Else what is the
meaning of "substantive"?

Advaita and visishtadvaita would then disagree only in as much as the latter
accepts a second form of consciousness (the attributive), the possession of
which makes the jiva a knower (jnatr) and not mere knowledge (jnanamatra).
But they would agree on the substance or essence of the jiva being jnana,
whereas van Buitenen in his commentary denies this and seems to say that
Ramanuja accepted *only* dharmabhutajnana. Or am I missing something?

Best regards,
Martin Gansten