Gandharavada

SR No.: 006739
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 156

Explanation based on Maladhari Hemacandra's Commentary.
1- INDRABHUTI REGARDING JIVA
to
Lord Mahavira rose above attachments and aversions and became omniscient. He was in the Mahasena Vana and people were coming to him in numbers. The Brahmanas assembled in the sacrificial enclosure became inquisitive as to who this great one was who was attracting hosts of people. In the fulness of pride, the most prominent and intelligent amongst them, Indrabhuti Gautama decided approach Mahavira. Seeing him Mahavira said, "Indrabhuti Gautama, you have a doubt as regards the existence of the soul." Indrabhuti's reasoning was to this effect: The soul is not known by perception (pratyakṣa), as the jar can be perceived; and it should be acceptable to all that what is utterly imperceptible does not exist just as the sky-flower does not exist. Atoms too cannot be directly perceived, but they become perceptible when they are transformed into their effects, jar, etc.. Not so the soul. Inference (anumana) also will not help us to know the existence of the soul, because inference is based on perception. Hence where perception itself does not work, inference is of no avail. "The Mountain is fiery, because it is smoky. Wherever there is smoke there is fire, e. g. in the kitchen. There is, on the mountain, smoke which is the determinate concomitant of fire; therefore it is fiery." Here 'smoke' is the middle term (the linga, mark), fire is the probandum (the signified, lingin that of which smoke is the mark). A person can infer in this way the existence of fire on the mountain provided he has previously cognised the relation of smoke (the linga) and fire (the lingin) in places like the kitchen and has determined that wherever there is smoke, fire also must exist, because fire is the cause of smoke, and remembers that on the perception of smoke on the mountain. But