________________
LIBERATION AND ITS MEANS ....
133
opinions as to what he says about religious ritual; for he insists that the performance of a religious ritual does not directly contribute towards the attainment of mokşa, an insistance which might have been absent from the mind of tire early Naiyāyikas who could as well concede that the performance of a religious ritual forms part of the right practice that leads to mokşa. As against all this, the Vedāntist maintained that mere right understanding is the means for attaining mokşa; for on his showing mokṣa consists in getting rid of the illusion that there exist things beside the one soul (called Brahman), something that requires mere right understanding and no practice of any sort. And while maintaining this position he vehemently quarrelled with the Mīmāmsakas who were ardent champions of Vedic ritualism and who were told by him that for the purpose of freeing oneself from the illusion in question one requires religious ritual as little as one requires secular practice of any sort. So, when Jayanta pleaded that the proper means for attaining moksa is mere right understanding and not it as assisted by religious ritual he was in essence adopting the Vedāntist's framework of argumentation, a framework with which his own Nyāya school had nothing to do. For as we have just seen, this school had its own manner of developing its position on the question under consideration, a position which Jayanta himself follows as loyally as was possible for him. The impression is inescapable that Jayanta was working under the impact of a growing influence of the Vedānta school, an impression further confirmed by his decision to undertake a detailed refutation of this school's ontological tenets. For otherwise, a criticism of Vedānta is extremely rare in the Nyāya texts coming either before or after Jayanta - in those coming before him because then this school was so little influential, in those coming after him because then it was so much influential. Thus when a post-Jayanta Nyāya author felt inclined to refute illusionism he would vent his anger against the Buddhist while sparing the Vedāntist, something like flogging a dead horse while doing nothing about the living one. For the post-Jayanta Nyāya authors were mostly living in a land so empty of Buddhists and so full of Vedāntists. Indeed, the last great Nyāya author to feel the physical presence of Buddhists was Udayana who fortunately also devoted one whole text, viz. Ātmatattvaviveka to a refutation of Buddhist ontology in general and Buddhist illusionism in particular. But child of his times,
