Verse 32: How does sensing become cognition?

karaṇaṃ trayodaśavidhaṃ tat āharaṇa dhāraṇa prakāśakaram |
kāryaṃ ca tasya daśadha āhāryaṃ dhāryaṃ prakāśyaṃ ca ||

karaṇaṃ – organs
trayodaśavidhaṃ – thirteen
āharaṇa – seizing
dhāraṇā – sustaining
prakāśakaram – illuminating

Through seizing, illuminating and sustaining.

1. Thirteen organs are involved in cognition: Mahat (intelligence – see verse 22), Ahamakara (I-am-ness – see verse 24), Manas (mind – see verse 27)), five organs of knowing and five organs of action (see verse 26).
2. An organ is an active agent – it resonates with a specific quality of elements (special objects).
3. The agency of an organ is a result of its potential to resonate with these specific elemental qualities. For example: the eye-organ relates to form-objects, the ear-organ relates to sound-objects, etc.
4. Together the thirteen organs seize, illuminate, and sustain.
   1. The five organs of action do the seizing: the feet do the walking to the tree and the hands do the grasping of the round object hanging on it.
   2. The five organs of knowing do the illuminating: sight, smell and taste illuminate the round object and expose it is an apple.
   3. The three internal organs do the sustaining: Mahat, Ahamkara and Manas sustain the impression of Apple.
5. All that is seized, illuminated and sustained is made up of ten special objects.