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338 Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [ch. has been regarded as helping the process of world-illusion in its own pure nature for otherwise there would have been no illusion at all. It is a curious doctrine that though Brahman in its pure nature helps illusion, yet, in its impure nature, as the scriptural texts or the knowledge arising out of them, it would remove it. So in whichever way we may think of the possibility of a removal of ajñānu we are brought into confusion.
Forty-fourth Objection. The conception of the cessation of the avidyā is also illegitimate. For the question that arises in this connection is whether the cessation of avidyā is itself real or unreal. If it is unreal, then the hope that the avidyā is rooted out with such a cessation is baffled, for the cessation itself is a manifestation of avidyā. It cannot be said that the cessation of avidyā has as its ground a real entity, the ātman, for then the ātman will have to be admitted as suffering change. And if in any way the cessation of avidyā is to be regarded as having a true cause as its support, then the cessation being real there would be dualism. If it is regarded as an illusion, and there is no defect behind it, then the assumption of avidyā as a defect for explaining the world-illusion would be unnecessary. If it is without any further ground like avidyā and Brahman, then there is no meaning in associating avidyā with it. There is also no reason why, even after the cessation of avidyā, it may not rise up again into appearance. If it is suggested that the function of the cessation of avidyā is to show that everything else except Brahman is false and as soon as this function is fulfilled the cessation of avidyā also ceases to exist, then also another difficulty has to be faced. For if the cessation of uvidyā itself ceases to exist, then that would mean that there is a cessation of cessation which means that avidyā is again rehabilitated. It may be urged that when a jug is produced it means the destruction of the negationprecedent-to-production (prāga-bhāva), and when this jug is again destroyed it does not mean that the negation-precedent again rises into being; so it may be in this case also. To this the reply is that the two cases are different, for in the above case the negation of one negation is through a positive entity, whereas there is nothing to negate the cessation of avidyā; so in this case the negation would be a logical negation leading to a position of the entity negated, the avidyā. If it is said that there is the Brahman which negates the cessation of avidyā, then the difficulty would be that Brahman, the
