History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
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

Page 2119

Xxx] Indefinability of World-appearance 303 is kept open whereby both may be absent at one and the same time. Thus, if eternity and non-eternity be defined as being-associatedwith-destruction and being-unassociated-with-destruction, then they may be both absent in generality, which has no being; and, again, if eternity be defined as absence of a limit in the future, and non-eternity be defined as liability to cessation on the part of entities other than being, then negation-precedent-to-production (prāg-abhāva) may be defined as an entity in which there is neither entity nor non-entity; for a negation-precedent-to-destruction has a future and at the same time cannot be made to cease by any other thing than a positive entity, and so it has neither eternity nor noneternity in the above senses. So the false silver, being unreal, cannot be liable to contradiction or be regarded as uncontradicted. The opponent, however, contends that the illustration is quite out of place, since generality (sāmānya) has no destruction and is, therefore, non-eternal, and negation-precedent-to-production is non-eternal, because it is destroyed. To this Madhusūdana's reply is that the Sankarites do not attempt to prove their case simply by this illustration, but adduce the illustration simply as a supplement to other proofs in support of their thesis. The reason why the qualities of being and non-being may be found in the worldappearance without contradiction is that, being qualities of imaginary entities (being and non-being), they do not contradict each other? If an entity is not regarded as non-eternal in a real sense, there is no contradiction in supposing it to be non-eternal only so long as that entity persists. Madhusūdana puts forward the above arguments to the effect that there is no contradiction in affirming the negation of any real qualities on the ground that those qualities are imaginary?, against the criticism of Vyāsa-tīrtha that, if the world-appearance is pronounced by any person for whatever reasons to be indefinable, then that itself is an affirmation, and hence there is a contradiction. To be indefinable both as being and as non-being means that both these are found to be contradicted in the entity under consideration. When it is said that the imaginary world-appearance ought not to be liable to being visible, invisible,
i dharmiņa eva kalpitatvena viruddhayor api dharmayor abhāvāt. Ibid. p. 622.
2 atăttvika-hetu-sad-bhāvena tättvika-dharmābhāvasya sādhanena vyāghātābhāvāt. Ibid. p. 623.