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Panchastikayasara exists and does not, both eternal and non-eternal. His rival will only answer, as the author of Saptabhangi Tarangini does, in the following manner. If you say it must be one of those and not both, you have the following difficulty. If the final release and heavenly bliss is eternal and existing, where is the chance for samsåra and the attempt to obtain mokşa? If the other alternative is the only truth, what is the purpose of preaching such an ideal which is altogether impossible ? “Man partly is and wholly hopes to be" is not mere poetry. It is genuine philosophy. Inasmuch as the final release is the goal towards which the whole creation moves, it is true and real; and inasmuch as it is the goal and is not yet an actualised fact, it is not real and true. Why should this doctrine be so vehemetly attacked, passes our understanding.
When we go to Râmânuja, we have got a different method of argument altogether. He seems to accept the rival doctrine, all the while protesting. He clearly sees the distinction between dravya and paryâya, substance and mode. He also perceives that paryâya means change and dravya permanency. He also correctly points out that the doctrine of syâdvâda is based upon these
rent aspects, dravya and paryâva. The proper course for the critic having gone so far, would be to accept the doctrine. Or if he wants to reject, he must show that things do not have both these aspects-dravya and paryaya. Instead of doing either, Râmânuja attempts to defend the Sútra on a principle which is quite indefensible and unwarranted. What he proves is that asti and násti cannot be predicated of a thing from the dravya point alone. According to him the same substance cannot have both predicates. Certainly, it cannot have. Jaina Logic too proclaims the same thing. But if you take the thing in both its aspects--and it must be so taken to avoid empty abstractions --then it can and must have both the predicates.
Attempting to reject this doctrine of identity in difference, Râmânuja has the insight to perceive how his own doctrine of Vedanta is affected. In one sense the vedântic metaphysics is the doctrine of the one and the many, If reality could be one and many at the same time, Vedantism would be sufficient argument in favour of syâdváda. But unlike Šankara who dismisses the Many as Máyâ, Râmânuja, as constrained by his metaphysicalattitude, accepts the reality of the many also. Then what becomes of the one in the many? He proposes the pûrva pakşa for the Jaina. “But how can you maintain that Brahma although one only, yet at the same time is the self of all?" He answer the púrva paksa thus- "The whole aggregate of sentient and non-sentient beings constitutes the body of the Supreme Person and that the body and the person are of totally different nature." This is extremely dubious victory. If the body constituted by finite things and persons is really the manifestation or pariņāma of the Brahmana and this what Râmânuja believes, then his refuge is quite unsafe. For, his rival would be justified in asking whether the pariņâma or the body is real or illusory. If the latter, his commentary becomes an unnecessary reduplication of Sankara's and if the former he is bound to
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