Gandharavada

Author(s): Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha

Page 45

36
The popular view-point is to believe in the existence of things that are perceptible to the senses and it is popularly accepted that there is no reason to believe in the existence of what is not perceptible to the senses. Inference can help only in those cases where a thing may not be perceived at the moment, but can be perceived if one wants to perceive it, e. g. fire on the mountain that is inferred from smoke. Again, inference is based on perception, for the vyapti (rule of invariable concomitance) cannot be arrived at without it. The soul or its relation to any linga (mark) has never been perceived and so inference cannot help us in inferring the existence of the soul. The Carvaka or Lokayata system of thought which had a popular appeal is an upholder of this point of view. Only that much exists as can be perceived by the senses; even the very wise arrive at ridiculous conclusions when they resort to inference or means of knowledge other than perception. As the story goes, a man made certain marks in the dust on the road just to test the intelligence and rational approach of the so-called wise, who actually fell a prey to this trick and inferred from the marks that a wolf had frequented the place. It is but natural that the soul should be denied according to this line of thought. Again we do not find anyone who has had the direct perception of the soul and hence whose words could be accepted as verbal testimony. Even the scriptures make conflicting statements. In Brh. Up. 2.4.12 we are told that the mass of consciousness itself arises from these material elements and follows them in destruction, and there is no
consciousness bhütebhyaḥ
after death (Vijñānaghana evaitebhyaḥ samutthaya tany eva'nu vinasyati, na ca pretya samjñā'sti). This seems to corroborate the Lokayata view that the soul or sentient-principle has no independent reality but is only an epiphenomenon of the material elements agregating in a certain proportion. Hence the allied view-point that the soul has no independent identity but is identical with the body, for consciousness is an attribute of the aggregate of the material elements, i. e. the body and there is the relation of identity between the attribute and what possesses it. The Buddha too has said that