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INDIAN LOGIC
world are somehow a source of pain. Similarly, he has already argued that a soul is of the form of a substance which experiences consciousness not always but only when apprehending an object, an apprehension necessarily requiring the aid of a body appropriately equipped with the sense-organs and a manas. It is therefore only logical that Jayanta should evaluate mokṣa as a state in which a soul is rid of all conscious experience. But such a concept of mokṣa was ridiculed by the Vedāntist on the ground that the state of moksa in which a soul leads a stone-like existence without experiencing any sort of pleasure is worse than the worldly state where one after, all experiences pleasure once in a while, his point being that the state of mokṣa must be characterised by an experience of pleasure and hence by consciousness. As we shall learn, this Vedāntist is an illusionist according to whom one soul (called Brahman) ever. possessed of consciousness and bliss is alone real, so that in his scheme of things attainment of moksa means attainment of the realisation that everything except the one soul thus conceived is an illusion, a realisation accompanied by an ever-present bliss (and, of course, an ever-present consciousness). Jayanta was extremely contemptuous of this Vedāntist mode of talking because he found it devoid of all logic. But he knew that the Vedāntist chiefly relied on the Upanişadic passages where a soul experiencing moksa is described as blissful; so to the word 'bliss' occurring in these passages Jayanta attributed the meaning 'absence of pain and meaningfully added : "Nothing is impossible for Lord Interpretation", besides he quoted in his support an Upanișadic passage where a soul leading the state of mokṣa is said to experience neither things favourable nor things unfavourable. Really, Jayanta had nothing to lose or gain by what an Upanişadic passage said or did not say, but as a loyal champion of Vedic orthodoxy he had to resort to the acrobatic in question. However, this part of the performance over, he mocked at the Vedāntist as follows : “So, according to you there is in a soul an eternal bliss and an eternal consciousness. Why not also posit in it an eternal body and an eternal set of sense-organs ? That would make a still more fine state of mokşa.” And then explaining his point he argues : "You say that no sensible person will aspire after mokṣa if it is conceived as a state devoid of bliss. Well, let him not aspire. But simply in order to attract people we cannot defy logic and say that the state of mokṣa is characterised
