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LIBERATION AND ITS MEANS ....
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by bliss." In this connection Jayanta criticises another extreme position according to which there is experienced no pleasure even - in the worldly state, a position Jayanta does not require; really, this man is only following the example set by Jayanta himself while once interpreting 'bliss' as 'absence of pain' and, moreover, like all believers in moksa Jayanta himself is of the view that the entire worldly experience is somehow of the form of pain. Lastly, Jayanta has a dig at the Buddhist according to which mokṣa means an interruption, a permanent interruption put to the concerned series of cognitive states; thus the former rightly remarks : “The idea that mokṣa means an interruption put to the concerned series of cognitive states is undesirable even from the standpoint of a Naiyāyika. For then there remains not even something leading a stonelike existence." Really, Jayanta should know from his own experience that one conceives moksa as is demanded by the logic of one's overall position, and the Buddhist's conception in question does follow from the logic of his over-all position; (the same is true of the Vedāntist, however fantastic might be the logic of his over-all position). Even so, the discussion of the present section enables us to form a good idea of how Jayanta on the one hand and his Vedāntist rival' on the other conceive moksa as suited to their respective conceptions of a soul as such. Then Jayanta proceeds to enquire as to what means lead to the attainment of mokşa, an enquiry essentially ethico-theological in character - this in contrast to the present one which is essentially ontological in character.
(2) What Means Lead to the Attainment of Moksa .. The aphorist says that moksa is attained when one after another have vanished wrong understanding, moral defilement, activity, birth, pain.' Jayanta explains that birth means 'a soul's association with a body, sense-organs etc.'All this gives us some idea as to why some of- the topics covered under the padārtha prameya are soul, body, sense-organ, manas, activity, moral defilement, rebirth, fruit of action, pain - they being topics specially relevant for an enquiry into mokṣa which itself is another topic covered under prameya. Offering another explanation Jayanta says that the causal chain under description has wrong understanding for its first item simply because this chain must start somewhere, his point being that otherwise wrong understanding itself is impossible unless birth is there; to this is added
