Jaina Concept of Omniscience

SR No.: 001547
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramjee Singh
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 258
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Knowledge
File Size: 17 MB

Page 108

PROOFS FOR THE SOUL BEING..
95
But there are difficulties in this position. Is the self a mere empirical collection identical with five-fold aggregates of physical and psychical states? In other words, is the self identical with body and mind? If so, there would be no self after death. This will lead to materialism or nihilism (ucchedavāda) and will also make moral and spiritual progress lead. ing to Nirvāṇa meaningless. True, to questions like these, the usual Buddhist answer is that the relationship is indescribable (avacya).1 108 But then, this is not really an answer. However, on behalf of the Buddhist, it can be said that Buddha adopted a neither-nor approach quite characteristic of the doctrine of the middle path (Madhyama Pratipada) i.e, he thought that soul is neither different from nor identical with the body,10. in order to get rid of both eternalism (Śāśvatavāda) and nihilism (Ucchedavāda).
The second difficulty in the Buddhist view of Self is that it misses the sense of identity. It is true that the theory of a mind -continuum governed by the natural law of causation provides not only for continuity, but also for change. Each succeeding state is the result of the preceding state which means that nothing is lost. Now if the doctrine of Karma means an assertion of the inexorable moral law of causation, and rebirth implies not the physical continuity of the body but the emergence of a new series of states caused and conditioned by the preceding ones, then Buddhists say, they have no difficulty in accepting them. Similarly, memory also becomes expicable. Vasubandhu says "Memory is a new state of consciousness directed to the same
103 Nagarjuna observes: "There is the self, there is the not-self, as also that there is neither the self nor the not-self"-Madhyamika Kārikā, XVIII. 6.
104 Samyutta Nikaya, XII. 35.5; Majjhima Nikaya, I. 256. cp. "Eternalism implies inherent perfection while nihilism implies its impossibility. It is in order to avoid these two undesired consequences that the Buddha adopted the middle course and left these problems avyakata unexplained" N. M. Tatia, Studies in Jaina Philosophy, p. 14.