Enlightened Vision of the Self

Author(s): Akalankadev, Devendra K Goyal
Publisher: Radiant Publishers New Delhi

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THE ENLIGHTENED VISION OF THE SELF
contingent element of change as well.10
According to Jainism, the cognition, the cognizer (the cognizing agent) and the cognized content are three distinct facts inseparably rolled into one.11 Nathmal Tatia observes:
The Jaina philosopher [Vidyananda] does not find any difficulty in admitting the same self running through different modes and preserving its identity. He likens this vertical identity to the unity of a cognition which has a variety of colours and form, spread in space as its content. Even as a single cognition can cognize a number of forms and colours in one sweep and be one unitary fact, so does a substance remain one while passing through different modes in succession. Moreover, if causal efficiency is the criterion of reality, the real should be admitted as permanent and transitory both. The momentary is not capable of exercising causal efficiency either in succession or in non-succession and as such cannot be real. The same is the case with an absolutely permanent entity. The Jaina accepts causal efficiency as the criterion of reality, which, according to him, presupposes that the real should be both permanent and transitory.
The Buddhist denies a permanent self underlying the course of psychical events which happen in different times. What exists and is possible is only the present momentary unit. The past is defunct, and the present is lost after its turn. This makes the continuity of personal life impossible, and consequently the continuity of present life into the future and the necessity of the law of karman that the performer of good or bad act will have to bear the consequences become impossible of explanation.12
The Jaina holds that causal efficiency is not consistent with the principle of momentariness (Kshanikarada)— although the Buddhist himself treats causal efficiency as the very essence of his principle. Causal efficiency, according to Jaina view, cannot function successively owing to the fact that the momentary existence (kshanas) lacks an abiding nature and hence can have neither spatial nor temporal duration. Succession-spatial or temporal-involves the notions of