Book Title: Indian Logic Part 03
Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Previous | Next

Page 115
________________ 104 INDIAN LOGIC submitted that a similar 'coordination' necessitating the positing of a permanent soul takes place also in the case of everyday practical dealings like study, farming, trade etc.34 Obviously, all this is but a corollary to the central argument Jayanta has already advanced in support of the soul-doctrine. In any case, with it closes the first section of the present chapter and now comes a refutation of the Buddhist doctrine of no-soul. The non-Buddhist anti-materialist philosophers like Naiyayikas and Mimāmsakas were as much opposed to the Buddhist's doctrine of no-soul as they were opposed to the Carvaka's doctrine of materialism. Nay, in some sense they were more opposed to the former because it had so much currency in academic circles where the latter had got rather few partisans. However, the controversy around the doctrine of no-soul was basically a controversy around the general doctrine of momentarism whose one corollary the former doctrine was. In any case, Jayanta here concentrates his attention on the doctrine of momentarism while treating the doctrine of no-soul as a mere corollary of this former doctrine. But then the⚫ doctrine of momentarism had its own history. Thus since very beginning the Buddhists were saying that the things of the world are all transient, and in this connection their emphasis was that things of the external world are all transient; for so far as mental states are concerned it was admitted on all hands that they are all transient. However, since the Buddhists went on to add that there. exists no soul over and above the fleeting mental states their pronouncements regarding mental states drew much attention; for denial of soul was something undertaken by the materialists alone while the Buddhists were no materialists. On their part the Buddhists were themselves vociferous in themselves vociferous in proclaiming their adherence to the doctrine of no-soul, so much so that the assertion that things of the world are all transient was made by them coordinate to the assertion that there exists no-soul. Inheriting this entire ideological tradition the Buddhist logicians worked out the implications of the received assertions that things of the world are all transient and that there exists no-soul. They came to the conclusion that if an external thing (like a jar or a piece of cloth) must be transient then it must undergo change every moment, for otherwise there can be shown no reason why this thing must perish; this was the root contention of their celebrated doctrine of

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226