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 456

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Atman and Moksa
the plurality of soul is justified on various grounds. The main argument is that the differences of experiences and those of actions and their rewards cannot work consistently in the absence of the separate existences of the souls. The souls are not perceptible like other objects because the soul can be known by oneself in a peculiar way, i.e., in the form of his I-consciousness. The existence of the souls of others, therefore, has to be known by inference from their activities similar to those of us. As Kumārila says“We become cognisant of other people's Souls, by observing their methods and actions, such are not possible without the Soul; - and also of such cognition of other people's Souls as has been shown by inferences.") From similar experiences of pleasure, pain, love, aversion and cognitions and from the willed actions of others it becomes clear that they must have a soul as we do similar actions, because we have soul. The differences of merit and demerit because of which different persons experience different experiences, and are involved in the cycle of rebirths, also become explicable by the assumption of separate souls that act as the doers of actions and reapers of rewards of their actions, but they cannot be directly perceived by others like other perceptible objects; hence they can be known only by means of inference. To oneself the soul is self-luminous; others have to understand it by inference. Prabhakara and Kumārila are unanimous on this point.
The souls are according to the Mimāúsã fry 1 Bhaļa Kumārila : S'lokavārtika, 145/p. 408.
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