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Biology in Jaina Treatise on Reals
22. Secondly, the consciousness has a non-ending succession where one form vanishes and other form appears regularly. 23. Moreover, if consciousness is taken to be totally destroyed, there will be loss of recollection as it occurs to self due to self-experience and not due to non-experience or experience of other. In the absence of recollection, there will be loss of the ways of the world based on it. 24. Q. The Vaiseșikas point out that consciousness cannot be the differentia of soul as it is different from it. However, its conjucntion with soul (whether separable or non-separable) may be called a differentia. For example, the stick is not the differentia of Devadatta. It is the conjunction of it (with him) that forms his differentia. If the stick only forms the differentia, the unconnected ones could also be his differentia. It is due to this that the reality has been defined (in Vaišesika Sūtra - 1.1.15) as that which has action and qualities and which serves as an inseparable cause. A. This is not correct. If the separateness of the soul and consciousness is accepted, there can be no rule that is is connected with the soul only and not with other. If the quality is separate from the reality, there can be nonconnection between the two as said earlier. (More serious consideration involves flaw of infinite regression in connections of the two. To avoid this flaw, one will have to agree to non-separation between the two at some stage. Why not, then, the first stage ?). Hence, there is no flaw in stating that the consciousness is the non-alienable differentia of the living Supplementary Notes
The commentary deals with the following points : (a) The living (embodied or disembodied) has been defined in terms of capacitative and functional consciousness-upayoga. It is defined as specific transformation (capacity and functions of the soul) concomitant with its intrinsic nature of consciousness due to two-fold each of alienable and non-alienable factors. These have been illustrated with common examples. (b) There is no contradiction in presuming pain, pleasure and delusion etc. also as upayoga as they are the constituents of consciousness which consists of a group of properties including knowledge and conation too. (c) The differentia is defined as the distinctive properties of an entity identifying it from other. It has two varieties- alienable and non-alienable-well illustrated in the text. (The attributes and the attributed cannot be separable due to (i) their specific differentia or (ii) defined-definition relationship as it will involve the flaws of non-distinction, infinite regression and non-existence. Moreover, the polyviewists do justify the aspectwise difference and nondifference between them. (d) The logic of disputants regarding the impossibility of differentia of consciousness of the living on the illustrated basis of non-transformation of milk into milk has been refuted on their own counts giving finer and better
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