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

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what happened in childhood or a man in a foreign country remembers what happened in his own country because the soul has persisted amidst all the changes; so also if there is remembrance of the previous life, it only means that the soul has not perished with the body. It cannot be argued that the subsequent moments (or point-instants) are stamped with the impressions of the immediately preceding ones and this can explain the memory-factor, because if the preceding moment perishes absolutely without having any connection with the subsequent one, the subsequent moment is absolutely different from the previous one. And one cannot remember what has been experienced by another as it would amount to the absurdity of Yajñadatta remembering what Devadatta experienced (1671).
It cannot also be argued that remembrance can be explained on the basis of a stream of point-instants of consciousness, even when the soul is momentary; for if a stream of consciousness be accepted as distinct from the body, it is as good as accepting the existence of a soul of the nature of a continuous stream of momentary consciousness (1672).
ness
Mahavira thus convinces Vayubhuti of the existence of the soul even though it be of the nature of a stream of momentary consciousness. Then he says that consciouscannot be absolutely momentary* for it could not then remember what Was previously perceived, as a child who dies immediately after birth does not remember what happened in the past in this life (as it has no past). But we find that a man remembers in his old age what happened in childhood or youth, and what is still more significant he remembers even his previous life (1673).
The Buddhists believe that cognition is one (not helped by another) and being one it can cognise only one object. Moreover, it is momentary, for in the Buddhist view, whatever
*Momentariness is in a way-from a particular point of view-acceptable to Mahavira and so he says that knowledge is not absolutely momentary.