________________
34
The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
the dish and at once proceeds to eat it. This is made possible only by the memory of the sweet taste of mangoes experienced in the past. The perception of non-existence, as it occurs to a man of extraordinary powers acquired by the practice of yoga, is certainly independent of the aid of memory. The mystic would see everything, existence and non-existence both, in one act of intuition. But by a person of limited powers like us nonexistence can be perceived only with the aid of memory. So there is no difficulty. But this defence has not satisfied the Vedäntist. In the first place, he maintains together with the Buddhist that perception is never a judgment. Perception gives us the knowledge of a thing as it is, uninterpreted by concepts. But the perception of non-existence would be a judgment as it is always cognized as non-existence of this or that. In the second place, the memory in question may be either of the negatum or of the non-existence. On the latter alternative, there would arise a vicious infinite regress. If the knowledge of non-existence be a case of memory, it would necessitate the postulation of a previous knowledge of non-existence. But as the latter would also be equally an act of memory, there would be no end of recollections. If, on the contrary, the cognition of non-existence at any stage is accepted to be independent of memory, why should the cognition under consideration be made dependent upon the same ? If, however, the recollection of the negatum is made the condition of the perception of negation, that also would give rise to a difficulty in another direction. Recollection, implicit or explicit, is certainly found to be an aid in the case of recognition. Here the object of perception is remembered to have been seen in the past and is then cognized to be identical with the perceived object. In recognition the two objects are same or similar and so memory is of help. But in the case of perception of non-existence one thing, viz., the negatum, is recalled and another thing, viz., its non-existence, is perceived. So the two situations are not similar. It should be recognised that perception is concerned with existent things and so cannot have jurisdiction over nonexistence. The perception of non-existence is thus a false belief. Not only is non-existence incompetent to be perceived, it cannot be known by inference also. Non-existence is a
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
