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PROOFS FOR THE SOUL BEING..
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others. There is also a quite serious objection from the side of the Cärvākas who hold that consciousness is the product of material elements, and hence there is no independent thing like soul as the substratum of consciousness. But the Cārvākas cannot prove it through perception, their only valid means of knowledge, because we never perceive anywhere the generation of consciousness by unconscious material elements. Even inference cannot prove it, because if the body were the cause of consciousness, it would have existed so long as the body existed i.e., during sleep, swoon, or even in a dead body,114 which is not a fact. We cannot prove causal connection between the matter and consciousness also because growth or decay of the body is not always followed by development and decay of consciousness. Even the organisation of the different material collocations to produce some consciousness requires some organiser, which is no other than the soul. To prove the identity between soul and body on the basis of such statements, 'I am fat', 'I am weak’ is due to taking literally what has been said figuratively. Then to prove the non-existence of soul on the basis of such negative judgements "there is no soul in the body is self-contradictory. We cannot make a negative judgement in the case of absolutely non-existent object. Denial of something in the place implies the knowledge of its existence somewhere in some form 115
The Jainas build up their argument for the existence of soul on the classical criticism of materialism that if consciousness is not implicit in the material elements, it cannot become explicit. Whatever is non-existent (asat) cannot be made to exist (sat). As Vācaspati says " blue cannot be turned into yellow even by one thousand artists”116, so says Haribhadra "as oil is absent in each particle of sand, it cannot be produced
114 Prabhācandra, Prame ya-Kamala--Martanda, p. 114. 115 Gunaratna's Commentary on Haribhandra's Sad-darsana-Samuccaya.,
48-49. 116 Vacaspati Misra, Sankhya-Tattva-Kaumudi, 9 (notes).
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