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XXI] Controversy with Monists by Madhava Mukunda 417
view the futility of the monistic interpretation of Vedanta by Sankara and his followers.
He says that the Sankarites are interested in demonstrating the identity of the individuals with Brahman (jīva-brahmai-kya) and this forms the principal subject-matter of all their discussions. This identity may be illusory or not. In the former case duality or plurality would be real, and in the latter case, i.e. if identity be real, then the duality presupposed in the identification must also be real'. It is not the case of the single point of an identity that Sankarites are interested in, but in the demonstration of an identification of the individuals with Brahman. The demonstration of identity necessarily implies the reality of the negation of the duality. If such a negation is false, the identification must also be false, for it is on the reality of the negation that the reality of the identification depends. If the negation of duality be real, then the duality must also be real in some sense and the identification can imply the reality of the negation only in some particular aspect.
The objections levelled by the Sankarites against the admission of "duality" or "difference" as a category are, firstly, that the category of difference (bheda) being by nature a relation involves two poles and hence it cannot be identical in nature with its locus in which it is supposed to subsist (bhedasya na adhikaraṇa-svarūpatvam). Secondly, that if "difference" is different in nature from its locus, then a second grade of "difference" has to be introduced and this would imply another grade of difference and so on ad infinitum. Thus we have a vicious infinite. To the first objection, the reply is that "difference" is not relational'in nature with this or that individual locus, but with the concept of the locus as such (bhūtalatvā-dinā nirapekṣatve'pi adhikaraṇātmakatvena sāpeksatve kṣater abhāvāt)2. The charge of vicious infinite by the introduction of differences of differences is invalid, for all differences are identical in nature with their locus. So in the case of a series of differences the nature of each difference becomes well defined and the viciousness of the infinite series vanishes. In the instance "there is a jug on the ground" the nature of the difference of the jug is jugness, whereas in the case of the difference of the difference, the second order of
1 dvitiye aikya-pratiyogika-bhedasya pāramārthikatva-prasangāt. Para-pakṣagiri-vajra, p. 12.
2 Ibid. p. 14.
DIII
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| SR No. | 007593 |
| Book Title | History of Indian Philosophy |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Surendranath Dasgupta |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Publication Year | 1922 |
| Total Pages | 2517 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 125 MB |