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MIMĀMSAKAS' OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
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such a simultaneous knowledge is apprehended by one cognition or by several cognitions. If the former is the case then it is impossible to perceive contradictory things like pure and impure at once by a single cognition.31 The Jainas retort: why contradictory things cannot be known by a single cognition ? Is it because they are not present at the same time or because by their very nature, they cannot be apprehended by a single cognition though they are present at the same time? If it is the former, it is incorrect since contradictory things like pure and impure do not exist at the same time. The latter position is also untenable since "there is simultaneous apprehension by one and the same cognition of mutually contradictory things like pure and impure and so forth, because they are incompatible with each other”33 Even though there are certain things that are mutually incompatible, they are cognisable by the same cognition. We do have simultaneous perception of darkness and light when there is a flash of lightening in a dark night. Analysing further, it is said that incompatibility is of two kinds-(i) mutual exclusiveness and (ii) non-existence. But by figuring in the same cognition, things do not become either unified or co-existent.33 But it may be said that if there is nothing incompatible in contraries figuring in the same cognition, then it should be possible for pleasure and pain, love and hate also to figure in the same cognition. To this objection, it may be replied that "pleasure and pain are not simultaneously cognised because they do not appear at one and the same time on account of the fact that the causes of both cannot be presented at the same time and not on account of any incompatibility.34 This means that the cause of the nonexistence of the simultaneity of pleasure and pain lies in the non-simultaneity of their causes. For instance, “though mutually incompatible, the various colours, like blue, yellow,
31 śāntarakṣita, Ibid., 3248. 32 Ibid., 3632. 34 Ibid., 3625.
33 Ibid., 3623-3624.
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