 Śaṅkara also critiques the view of some Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophers, Vasubandhu and Dharmakīrti for example, who argue that a given cognition or mental state can simultaneously reveal itself and its object. Their self-illumination thesis is quite similar to Advaita Vedānta but endeavors to be more parsimonious by eliding the witnessing consciousness. Śaṅkara counters that a self-illuminating cognition is incoherent because it is subject to the reflexivity fallacy (BrSūBh 2.2.28). Just as a knife cannot cut itself, so too is cognition unable to objectify itself. A cognition requires a different source of illumination to be known. This is also a matter of direct experience, for we are aware of a cognition’s changes such as its origination and destruction and the arising of a new cognition. A source of illumination distinct from the cognition itself is required to know such changes. Śaṅkara contends that the self-illumination of witnessing consciousness does not similarly fall to a reflexivity fallacy (KeUBh 1.3). Even though consciousness is immediately known, it does not objectify itself. Self-illuminating consciousness does not come into a relationship with itself. It does not entail being subject and object simultaneously, which would be incoherent, for there is no distinction to be made between itself and consciousness of itself. (See Mackenzie 2012; Ram-Prasad 2007; Timalsina 2009; Indich 1980; and Fasching 2021 for further discussions of self-illumination).