Ontic Epistemology in Shankara's Advaita

 #118/119 (Chap. 18/Upadesa Sahasri by Shankara):

Pervaded by Consciousness, mental modification in the forms of objects come into existence.  External objects are what impart their forms to these modifications.  The most desirable of all things ( on the part of the agent ), these external objects are called objects of his action.  One having such a desire is enjoined to perform actions.  The mental modifications in which the forms of external objects are present are called the instruments of his knowledge of objects.

This seems very much like representationalism or mediate realism and might be said to fall to the same objections.  If all you really know is the mental side of things doesn’t the external object drop away as an inference or an unknowable noumenon?  Here is where the advaitic form of realism is like the Platonic.  The mental modification (vritti) / is of the same stuff as the object and thereby can reflect it, on a lower defective level in the Platonic of course.  In advaita the same stuff is Consciousness, the object being a form of limitation of Consciousness and the vritti (mental modification) also being a form of limitation.  The internal/external bridge is thereby obviated.  This is the blend of Ontic epistemology that is central to Advaita.