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CHAPTER III
81
Nimbārka impresses upon the truth of this non-differentin-the-different relation between brahman and the 'jīva-jagat' by means of the stock Vedāntic examples like a serpent and its coils and the sun and its rays. The serpent (ahi) in its coiling state (kuņqalāvasthāyām) is conceived to be different from the serpent as it is in its normal elongated posture (svābhāvika lambāyamānāvasthāyām); and yet the two serpents are also regarded as non-different (or identical) in so far as the coiled one is an effect of the (elongated or) normal one which is the cause. Being a satkāryavādin Nimbārka considers the effect as being pre-existent--or, more precisely, an undifferentiated” (avyakta) existent-in its
brahman, corrupt brahman with even a trace of their defects (evam cetanacetanayor brahmavišeşanatve'pi tadbhinnatvān na tadqunasankaryagandho'pīti / Siddhanta-jähnavi, p. 42). This view does not commend itself to the exponents of svābhāvika bhedābhedavāda. They maintain that the function of an attribute (vise. şaņa) is to differentiate (vyāvartakatvam) the particular object to which the attribute belongs from other object or objects to which it does not belong. Cit and acit, being attributes of brahman, should, they insist, differentiate brahman from other objects. But, they continue, there is no other object than brahman from which brahman could be distinguished. To say that the attributes, viz., cit and acit, distinguish brahman from themselves would therefore be, according to them, absurd owing to the fact that the attributes belong to brahman and, therefore, their task is not to distinguish the object, to which they belong, from themselves but from other objects which do not possess them. There being no such other objects the entire Višiştādvaitic thesis, concerning cit and acit as attributes, is, they conclude, erroneous. For a lucid exposition of this argument see Siddhānta-jähnavi, p. 43 f., and Bindu, ślokas 17-22. See Saurabha, III. 2. 27 and 28; VPSN, Pt. II (pp. 552-556); and HIP, Vol. III, p. 416, f.n. 1, and p. 434, f.n. 1 (for a lucid passage from Para-paksa-giri-vajra). See Ratnamālā, sloka 103.
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