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LIBERATION AND ITS MFANS ...
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The Vedāntist argues that perception reveals Brahman because it reveals the bare existence of a thing, Brahman being of the form of bare existence; the argument is untenable inasmuch as perception reveals not the bare existence of a thing but its concrete nature. Again, he offers an inference to the effect that Brahman is the true reality lying at the back of all things because all things must be essentially one in nature; this inference too is untenable inasmuch as things of the world need not be individually unreal simply because they are essentially one in nature. Lastly, the Vedāntist appeals to the authority of scriptural texts where things of the world are declared to be in essence one and the multiplicity apparently exhibited by them dismissed as something really non-existent; but a scriptural text can be interpreted in all sorts of ways and in any case it constitutes no independent evidence. For the most part, however, the Vadāntist seeks to sustain his position with the help of analogies usually half-baked. As a matter of fact, this was indicative of the logical immaturity of Vedānta as a school of philosophy and was one reason why this school seldom attracted attention of our great authors on philosophy. But in Jayanta's time certain extra-logical forces were pushing this school to the forefront and so he was forced to bestow on it the criticism we now fol' w. .
Jayanta begins his criticisnt with a biting general remark as follows: "You are doubtless expert at taking up an array of deceptive positions and concocting appropriate analogies, but you are poor at saying things based on a solid evidence."' Then he submits that the means of cognition like perception etc., far from establishing nondifference, rather necessarily presuppose a difference obtaining among things.20 Thus on his showing the forms successively assumed by the lump of clay in the course of a jar being produced are proved to be identical qua clay precisely because they are found to be different qua these various forms.21 As for the testimony of perception, Jayanta recalls that he has already demonstrated that it lends support to the position that things are mutually identical as well as mutually different, pertinently remarking : "The Buddhist says that perception reveals a thing to be different from everything else while its identity with another thing is a matter of relating this thing with this other thing; you say that perception reveals a thing to be identical with everything else while its difference from another thing is a. "matter of relating this thing with this other thing. Both of you are
