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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
ties of the Self. To save this view from the charge that Mokşa comes perilously near the unconscious condition of a pebble or a piece of stone, the Vaiseşikas propound a doctrine of Inherent Felicity in the state of Mokşa. But they have yet to explain how felicity is Unconscious.
Mimamsakas, like the Nyaya-Vaiseșikas, regard the soul as eternal and infinite, with consciousness as its adventitious attribute, dependent upon its relation to the body. It survives death to reap the consequences of action. Since the Mimamsaka school belongs to the ritualistic period of the Vedic culture, the final destiny of an individual is regarded as the attainment of heaven-the usual end of rituals (Svarga kámo yajetc ). But latter on, the idea of heaven is replaced by the idea of liberation, for they realised that we have to fall back to the earth as soon as we exhaust our merit. The concept of heaven was indeed a state of unalloyed bliss (at least temporary ). But the state of liberation is free from pleasure and pain, since consciousness is an adventitious quality of the Soul. To Prabhakaras, Moksa is the realisation of the Moral Imperative as duty (Niyoga-siddhi). To Kumärila, it is the “Soul's experience of its own intrinsic happiness with complete cessation of all kinds of misery,"i which is very much like the Advaitic conception. The general conception of Bhatļas is the realisation of intrinsic happiness ( atmasaukhyānubhūti). Pārthasārathi Misra2 and Gāgabhat:a deny this. Nārāyanabhafta, Bhattasarvajña and Sucaritra Miśra clearly admit the clement of happiness in the state of Mukti, since to them, Soul is consciousness associated with ignorance (Ajñā nopitacaitanyātmavada ) during embodied existence.
According to Samkhya, consciousness is not a mere quality but the soul's very essence, The soul is pure, eternal and immutable. Hence it is not blissful consciousness (ānanda
1. Manameyodaya, V. 26. 2. Šāstra-dipika, pp. 125-131.
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