Aptamimansa Critique of an Authority Bhasya

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

Page 91

56
CRITIQUE OF AN AUTHORITY potsherds' can at the same time be called 'destruction of jar' or 'continuation of gold'.
लोकोत्तरदृष्टान्तेनापि तत्र प्रतीतिनानात्वं विनाशोत्पादस्थितिसाधनं प्रत्याययति । दधिपयोऽगोरसव्रतानां क्षीरदध्युभयवर्जनात् क्षीरात्मना नश्यत् दध्यात्मना उत्पद्यमानं गोरसस्वभावेन तिष्ठतीति । ततः तत्त्वं त्रयात्मकम् ॥६०॥ ॥ इति आप्तमीमांसाभाष्यरूपायाम् अष्टशत्यां तृतीयः परिच्छेदः॥
Comment on verses 56-60 In these verses Samantabhadra defends the Jaina position according to which a real entity is somehow permanent and somehow momentary. He seems to base his defence on the fact that we often recognize a thing to be the same as that seen at an earlier occasion. The fact may suffice to prove that there are things that reveal both a changing and an unchanging aspect but it is difficult to see how it can prove that everything reveals both a momentary and a permanent aspect. Really speaking, the Jaina should substantially endorse the entire Buddhist case on momentarism - only formulating the same in the language of 'modes' and 'substances' rather than in that of 'events' and 'series'. In this connection we should particularly take note of the distinction the Jaina is logically bound to draw between a 'rc )t-substance and a 'composite substance'. For just as the empiricist Buddhist maintains that an apparently unitary and stationary object of our everyday experience is but a conglomeration of numerous momentary events' the Jaina will maintain that the same (to be called a 'composite substance') is but a conglomeration of numerous root-substances' each exhibiting a new mode every moment. Thus the difference between the empiricist Buddhist and the Jaina is not that the former is repudiating the findings of plain experience and the latter honouring them but that the former is explaining these findings with the help of one set of terminologies and the latter with the help of another set. In any case, we have to distinguish between the occasion when the Jaina is conducting his argument in terms of the absolutely permanent 'root-substances and their respective momentary modes and the occasion when he is doing so in terms of the relatively permanent 'composite-substances' and their relatively changing respective modes; the distinction is necessary in order to correctly assess the Jaina's theoretical analysis of the situation under consideration as also in order to compare and contrast it with the corresponding analysis undertaken by the empiricist Buddhist.