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XXVII] Defence of Pluralism (Bheda)
179 soul and not to the pure consciousness; it is this pure consciousness which is the individual (jīva), and, since the suffering exists only so long as there is limitation, the difference ultimately vanishes when the limitation vanishes, and cannot therefore be real. But the Madhvas do not consider such individuals, limited in nature, to be false, and hence the difference depending on their nature is also not false. There being an eternal and real difference between the nature of the individuals and that of God, namely that the former suffer pain while the latter does not, the two can never be identical. The individual souls are but instances of the class-concept “soulhood," which is again a sub-concept of substance, and that of being. Though the souls have not the qualities of substances, such as colour, etc., yet they have at least the numerical qualities of one, two, three, etc. If this is once established, then that would at once differentiate this view from the Sankara view of self as pure selfshining consciousness, leading to differenceless monism. The self as a class-concept would imply similarity between the different selves which are the instances or constituents of the concept, as well as difference among them (insomuch as each particular self is a separate individual numerically different from all other selves and also from God). The supposition of the adherents of the Sankara school is that there is no intrinsic difference among the selves, and that the apparent difference is due to the limitations of the immediately influencing entity, the minds or antahkaranas, which is reflected in the selves and produces a seeming difference in the nature of the selves, though no such difference really exists; but Vyāsa-tīrtha urges that the truth is the other way, and it is the differences of the selves that really distinguish the minds and bodies associated with them. It is because of the intrinsic difference that exists between two individual selves that their bodies and minds are distinguished from each other. The Upanişads also are in favour of the view that God is different from the individual souls, and the attempt to prove a monistic purport of the Upanişad texts, Vyāsa-tīrtha tries to demonstrate, may well be proved a failure1
This defence of difference appears, however, to be weak when compared with the refutations of difference by Citsukha in his Tattva-pradīpikā, Nșsimhāśrama muni in his Bheda-dhikkāra, and
1 He refers to the Upanişad text dvā suparnā, etc.
