tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 303

Nyaya-Vais'eşika
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
271
possess desire, will, pleasure, pain and knowledge. The soul is a special kind of substance imagined by the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika systems, to explain the existence of such qualities, which cannot belong to material things. Kanāda recognises these qualities as the signs of the soul. The soul cannot be identified with these modes of consciousness like desire, volition, knowledge for in that case the soul will have only momentary existence as the former ones; and moreover, there will be no consistency because of the contradictory nature of these various psychical attributes. The soul will be then reduced to a floating state of consciousness without a ground or resting place underneath. The soul is not, therefore, one with any of these attributes separately nor collectively; but it acts as their permanent dwelling place and an enduring support.
Even though in the soul inhere all these qualities, the soul does not possess any of the psychical attributes as its permanent quality. Even consciousness is not an essential and hence permanent attribute of the soul. The Naiyayikas hold that knowlege and the other psychical attributes arise in the soul when it comes into contact with the manas and body. In itself it is not constituted of eternal consciousness as the Advaita Vedanta holds. Consciousness is its quality which sometimes arises in it and sometimes is absent from it. Gotama in his Sūtra says" Knowledge is a natural quality of
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1 Pras'a stapāda (Com.): Vais'eṣika Dars'anam (Kaṇāda Sūtras), p. 7.