________________
380
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
If it is understood that its suffering is not real, we do not object to the phrase 'as it were l' For the amphisbena also does not become venomous because it is 'a serpent as it were' (like a serpent'), nor does the serpent lose its venom because it is like an amphisbena.' You must therefore admit that the relation of causes of suffering and of sufferers is not real, but the effect of Nescience. And if you admit that, then my (the Vedântic) doctrine also is free from objections
But perhaps you (the Sânkhya) will say that, after all, suffering (on the part of the soul) is real. In that case, however, the impossibility of release is all the more undeniable“, especially as the cause of suffering (viz. thc pradhâna) is admitted to be eternal.-And if (to get out of this difficulty) you maintain that, although the potentialities of suffering (on the part of the soul) and of causing suffering (on the part of the pradhâna) are eternal, yet suffering, in order to become actual, requires the conjunction of the two
-which conjunction in its turn depends on a special reason, viz. the non-discrimination of the pradhana by the souland that hence, when that reason no longer exists, the conjunction of the two comes to an absolute termination, whereby the absolute release of the soul becomes possible; we are again unable to accept your explanation, because that on which the non-discrimination depends, viz. the guna, called Darkness, is acknowledged by you to be eternal.
1 For it then indicates no more than a fictitious resemblance.
? The Sankhya Purvapakshin had objected to the Vedanta doctrine that, on the latter, we cannot account for the fact known from ordinary experience that there are beings suffering pain and things causing suffering.—The Vedantin in his turn endeavours to show that on the Sânkhya doctrine also the fact of suffering remains inexplicable, and is therefore to be considered not real, but fictitious merely, the product of Nescience. * Not only suffering as it were,' as it had been called above.
For real suffering cannot be removed by mere distinctive knowledge on which-according to the Sânkhya also—release depends.
Digitized by
Digized by Google
