Verse 2.70

Sanskrit text and transliteration:

प्रत्यक्षतोऽवसेयत्वादेवं सर्वस्य वस्तुनः ।
नैवं साधयितुं शक्यं क्षणिकत्वं कथञ्चन ॥ ७० ॥

pratyakṣato'vaseyatvādevaṃ sarvasya vastunaḥ |
naivaṃ sādhayituṃ śakyaṃ kṣaṇikatvaṃ kathañcana || 70 ||

English translation of verse 2.70:

Similarly, since all objects are known through perception (and other pramāṇas), the momentariness (of anything) can never be established.

Notes:

A fresh objection is now raised. Kṅowledge is momentary; and since Brahman is knowledge, it is momentary. So. the expression jñānam brahma, it is argued, points to the momentariness of Brahman. This objection will not do.

It is through pramāṇas such as perception that we come to know of anything. But no pramāṇa can be cited as proof of the momentariness of an object. Perception, for example, reveals what has so far remained unknown. The object which, though existed, was not known earlier comes to be known now. The earlier state when it was not known and the later one when it comes to be known are different. This difference has to be admitted since a thing cannot be both known and unknown at the same moment. So the existence of a thing prior to its becoming an object of knowledge at a particular moment is obvious. If so, it is not momentary. What holds good in the case of perception is equally true of inference and other pramāṇas.

So far as Brahman-Ātman is concerned, Scripture emphatically declares that it is eternal consciousness; e.g., there is the Bṛhadāraṇyaka text (IV, iii, 23) which says: “The vision of the witness can never be lost.”