________________
OCTOBER, 1971
57
Thus it is evident from the above that the reasoning for the existence of Brahman is not parallel to the reasoning involved in the illusion of rope and snake. Viewed from the construction of different organs of a syllogism as described above we find therefore, that both represent the different trends of argument which exactly can not be analogized.
Still, if we observe these major premises with general analytical method, we can not disprove the immediacy of the world. In (B)1 a valid conclusion was drawn, as 'This is the world', because 'It is multiphased and phenomenal'. In this argument the world's phenomenality was asserted on the basis of direct sense-experience. Now since the world was directly sensed, it is but natural that we should accept the truth thereof. But the Advaitins profess the unreality of what is cognized, because it is full of contradiction. This conclusion, that what is self-contradictory is unreal is drawn not by direct experience of what is unreal, but by some non-sensual experience of a thing which has neither multisidedness nor self-contradiction. In a way it means, that multisidedness was actually not an objective truth but it was a bye-product of sense experience itself. If it is so, then we have obviously departed from the analogy of rope-snake illusion ; because in that illusion snake was an objective truth wrongly transposed on some other objective truth, i.e., rope. None of them is the byeproduct of the cognizing mind. More-over in the instance of ropesnake illusion the basis of snake-knowledge, i.e., 'curved length and dark colour' remained in tact even when the snake-knowledge was negatived. Rope-knowledge, the negator of snake, fully subsumed that basis in its original form. But here multisidedness, the basis of world-knowledge (jagat-jñāna) is made absent in its negator, the ultimate knowledge (Brahma-jñāna). Moreover, the method of calling some sense-knowledge as untrue on the basis of some transcendental knowledge being proved as true by some of its premises different from that of sense-knowledge, can be no more than a form of indirect method, because in the logic of transcendental experience no attempt is made to disprove the premises of sense-experience. Hence it can certainly be held, that the analogy of rope-snake-illusion is quite misfit in the theory of Advaita Vedānta.
Epistemological Analysis
Even if it is taken for granted that the inference from analogy is a weak and one sided argument, the resemblance in mutual relationship between the things analogized in both the sides must be established beyond any logical inconsistency. For example, if we say, that just as a
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
