There is an excellent reason why Vedanta has chosen the apparently paradoxical way of talking about perception using the phenomenon of confusion. Confusion in Vedanta is taking something to be what it is not. The rope is taken to be a snake, the stump at dusk is taken to be a human form etc. It is important here to distinguish between this mis-take and the related phenomena of delusion and illusion.
The point is that there can only be confusion when there is a state of affairs that is the case. We are thus tied into a reality. The mental modification (vritti) is not the true reality but that true reality can be found.
This way of looking at things runs counter to the Western conundrum known as the argument from illusion. If, it is said, we are mistaken in this instance, may we not be globally in error. This view has its origin in Cartesian doubt. What we are in contact with is the mental experience. That there is an external world corresponding to this is due to the mercy of a God who is not a deceiver. Vedanta is different in that there is an ontological connection between the vritti (mental modification) and the upadhi (limiting adjunct). They share the same substratum. They meet on the plane of being.
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