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EXISTENCE OF GOD
135
[In passing Jayanta refutes a fantastic view upheld by certain Mimāṁsakas according to which the nacre-mistaken-to-be-silver is really silver though of an extraordinary type contrasted to the ordinary type of silver. 133 The refutation obviously makes sense, but the mere existence of a view like that goes to show that their infatuation with the dogma that all cognition is intrinsically valid misled the Mimāṁsakas to commit all sorts of ideological follies.]
By now Jayanta has completed his discussion of the question whether the validity of cognition is intrinsic (and with it his discussion of the most important problems of logic), but he has yet to make transition to his discussion of the question whether God exists and to his discussion of the question whether a word is an eternal verity – two considerably lengthy ontological discussions covering the rest of Ahnika III. This transition is made by way of arguing that whatever be the case with the other types of cognition, a cognition born of verbal testimony is valid not intrinsically but only in case the speaker concerned is an authoritative person.134 More particularly it is argued that a Vedic testimony is valid because the author of Vedas is God, the supreme authority on matters religious.135 Hence the need for demonstrating the existence of God. Again, the Mimāṁsaka has argued that a Vedic testimony is valid because Vedas are an authorless text existing since ever136, and he has sought to buttress his. argument by maintaining that all word is an eternal verity. Hence the need for demonstrating that a word is no eternal verity.
(iii) The Existence of God Unbelievable though it might appear, not only the major rivals of Jayanta but even his minor rivals stood committed to repudiate the dogma of God. Thus, this was the case with the Buddhist and the Mīmāṁsaka:who were his major rivals and this was the case with the Sankhya, the Carvāka, the Jaina who were his minor rivals; (to complete the list let us mention the Advaita-Vedāntin who was another minor rival of Jayanta but whose attitude on the question of God as on all questions of everyday experience was, to say the least, ambiguous). It would, however, be wrong to think that on the question of God Jayanta represented a minority trend; for theism was the basic world-outlook of the Purānic-Brahmanist while Purānic-Brahmanism was the dominant theological trend in the medieval India. So Jayanta's attitude on the question of God deserves a close study in all its nuances,
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