________________
132
this discussion regarding the inconsistency of causality is in vain. Moreover if this thing be a produced one, how could it be called 'non-produced by these alternatives; and it would be self-contradictory as one and the same thing cannot be both produced and non-produced. And if this 'produced' be something unreal, then the alternatives regarding 'produced', etc., will not have anything to stand upon. If it could be possible to think in terms of such alternatives even of non-existent things Vyakta or any one should have discussed sky-flower which is non-existent in the same fashion. As said before (see Gathā 1708) if everything is equally non-existent the situation could have been the reverse of what is at present, viz dream could be non-dream and vice versa; or produced and non-produced should be of the same kind or what is produced should be non-produced and vice versa and so on. It cannot also be argued by the Nihilist that he discusses these alternatives of 'produced', 'non-produced', etc., not because he accepts them as such, but because he wants to defeat the opponent on his own ground, for if he accepts own view and 'other's view that would be giving the lie to Nihilism (1725).
Mahā vira argues that even our commonsense tells us that things must be produced. A thing becomes perceptible only after its birth, its production; it was not cognised before and again will not be cognised when with the passage of time it has perished. This shows that production is an established fact (1726).
By the above-mentioned alternatives, even the knowledge (conception, idea) that everything is void, and its expression can be proved to be non-produced; yet the idea and its expression have necessarily to be somehow taken as 'produced'. similarly all things can be looked upon as produced, whether the alternatives are applied or not. If the knowledge and its expression are not accepted as produced, the void will not be propounded by anything (1727).
Vyakta could disprove the concept of causality by dialectical reasoning. But Mahāvīra has the advantage of his
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
