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THE SIDDHANTA.
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is quite untenable ; since absolutely no reason can be found for the descent of an Omniscient Being into matter, to undergo the pain and suffering of an unimaginably prolonged bondage. Besides, the Sankhyan philosophy, though based on the hypothesis of an alternation of cycles of inanifestation and destruction of the universe, nowhere accounts for the souls which remain unevolved at the end of a world-cycle, nor for those who obtain eternal emancipation. The latter cannot become involved in transmigration afresh, and must exist somewhere freed from the trammels of samsara ; and the former cannot disappear from existence altogether. Their nature would prevent them from rising to the Siddha Sila, so that they must remain somewhere in the samsára itself. This point alone will suffice to show that the system of Kapila is as unsatisfactory as Advaitism pure and simple.
Moreover, it is permissible to ask, what might be the significance of Purusha ? Is it a quality, or being ? If the former, it cannot exist by itself, since qualities require a substratum of substance to inhere in. If the latter, that is, a being, how is the multiplicity of souls to be explained ? They surely are neither non-existent, nor reflections of any particular being. If it be now conceded that there is a multiplicity of purushas, then arises the great difficulty about their becoming all involved in alternate involution and evolution at one and the same time. But Sankhya has nothing to say to this in reply. . We thus conclude that the notion of an alternation of involution and evolution is as untenable as that of the creation of the universe at the fiat of a world-making god.
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