Aptamimansa Critique of an Authority Bhasya

Author(s): Samantbhadracharya, Akalankadev, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Jagruti Dilip Sheth Dr

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CRITIQUE OF AN AUTHORITY is possible to produce any thing at any place or time might give rise to the opinion that a real entity exists at all place and time. Similarly, the transcendentalist repudiates the reality of the empirical world existing in space-time and posits instead the reality of a trans-empirical world existing beyond space-time; as such he can well be said to maintain that a real entity (i.e. the trans-empirical reality posited by him) exists at no place or time.
Section 2 In this section the problem discussed is whether a real entity is one with every other real entity or it is different from every other real entity. The thesis asserts that a real entity is absolutely one with every other real entity, meaning thereby that there exists just one real entity and that it is devoid of all internal change or difference. The antithesis asserts that a real entity is absolutely different from every other real entity, meaning thereby that there exist a number of real entities and that they are utterly different from each other both numerically and qualitatively. The synthesis asserts that a real entity is somehow one with every other real entity and it is somehow different from every other real entity, meaning thereby that two real entities even if different from each other must also be one with each other either numerically or qualitatively; (when two entities constitute two modes of the same substance they are numerically identical, when they just exhibit some similarity they are qualitatively identical). Here the advocate of the thesis is unmistakably the transcendentalist who, while repudiating the reality of the empirical world, posits some one trans-empirical reality under the title Sünya, Vijñāna, Brahman or the like. The advocate of the antithesis is the Buddhist empiricist, and Samantabhadra's trenchant criticism of this Buddhist position is worthy of as much serious attention as his powerful advocacy of the Jaina position on the question. For that way we will be enabled to form an idea of how strenously - and on substantially identical lines - two schools of Indian empiricism were grappling with the problem of identity and difference - numerical as well as qualitative.
Section 3 In this section the problem discussed is whether a real entity is permanent or momentary. The thesis asserts that a real entity is absolutely permanent, the antithesis that it is absolutely momentary; as against them, the synthesis asserts that a real entity is somehow