Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Sukhlal Sanghavi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 25

Philosophy-Origin and Subject-matter
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soul or conscious element, treated it as something absolutely different from all physical substance. Even so, in the line of thinking adopted by these philosophers positing an independent conscious element there yet remained some tinge or other of the materialist standpoint. Thus the Jainas and Buddhists attributed to conscousness, under this name or that, an independent individuality, and yet the conscious element posited by them exhibits in a real fasbion physical properties like 'size-reduction or size-expansion in imitation of the body concerned quality, multiplicity etc, that are in fact characteristic of things physical'. As for the Nyaya-Vaiseşikas and Sankhyas - among the latter some positing 25 fundamental elements, other 26 - they in this connection of course refrained from the talk of size-reduction and size expansion but some shadow of physicality is definitely exhibited by a soul or the conscious element posited by them. Thus the Nyāya-Vaišeşikas do treat a soul as something ubiquitous and eternal-without-undergoing-change, but they do not attribute to this soul consciousness in the form of an inseparable feature, a feature in virtue of which this soul should always undergo a conscious experience. On their view, a soul in the state of emancipation (=mokşa) assumes a status akin to that of a physical element like ākāśa (=ether ), both being something non-conscious and eternalwithout-undergoing-change. True, the Sankhyas treat a soul ( purusa) as something conscious by nature, but on their view too souls exhibit multiplicity which is essentially a physical feature. The advocates of the doctrine called Vijñānavada' view soul in the form of a series of conscious states. Thus according to them it is not of the form of a permanent substance, and yet in view of the fact that they posit a multiplicity of consciousnessseries they too cannot be said to be free from the idea of attributing to the conscious element an essentially physical features. This might be said to be the second stage traversed by the philosophical speculation pertaining to the nature of soul. The last stage is represented by the doctrine called Adhibrahmavāda'. According to it, neither one soul nor many souls are either a transformation of some physical element or individuals somehow or other independent of one another. The view is that so many conscious elements - call them soul, purusa, consciousness-series or whatever you like -- are but an adventitious form of the one single impartite consciousness, this being the reason why all mutual difference among these conscious elements is sheer imaginary. Really, on this view souls are characterized neither by 'sizereduction or size-expansion in imitation of the body concerned', nor by multiplicity that is in fact charasteristic of things physical', nor by lack of consciousness (-jadatā). Evolution of thought is thus observed also as regards the nature of the element called soul.