Jinamanjari 2002 04 No 25

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

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is a result of the ultimate Self forgetting its own nature and identity in itself with the external objects of the non-Self. In this respect, the Advaita system has close resemblance with that of the Jaina system of transmigratory existence.
Kundakunda has philosophized that the samsaric existence is without beginning and liberation is possible by getting rid of the transmigratory existence, which is determined by its own karmic activity at every stage, through the discriminating knowledge of the Self as distinct from external objects. If conduct is good, it is destined to have happiness as the fruit of karma, if otherwise, then misery is the result. The variation in the individual hedonic experience is thus attributed to the individual's own action. The monist Sankarācārya has taken note of the transmigratory existence tied with karmic actions and has conceded that the individual souls are determined by their respective karmas, good or bad, and that the ultimate Brahman is not responsible for such individual conduct.13
Kundakunda has called to be aware of the Self and not be equated with the non-Self, as it constitutes the initial mithya or the error. It is certainly an error to identify the Self with the sensecharacteristics that are peculiar to the physical body because the sense qualities of colour, taste and smell have nothing to do with the nature of the Self. Birth, old age, decay and death are all characteristics alien to the conscious Self. Social and economic distinction in the individual also pertains to the body and cannot be transferred to the Self. In short, the Self is a cetana entity and the non-Self is an acetana entity, which is the object of sense perception.
Similarly, the Advaita sage Śankarācārya has argued that it is mithya to speak of the body as Self. While Kundakunda stops at the stage of mithya (error) as the symptom of false identification, Sankarācārya has argued that it is an error to confuse Self with the body, since the body itself becomes mithya or illusion. Therefore, Śankarācārya's pronouncement of the body becoming illusion is an extenuated view expressed following his Vedantic tradition. To th philosopher Kundakunda, the non-Self is not mithya or illusion; it is only the symptom of false identification. Sankarācārya here seems to forget his own statement in the introduction [to the Bhasya] of the fundamental distinction between the Self and the non-Self when he comes to propound his theory of unqualified monism, by denying the reality of external world itself." "
14
While refuting the Buddhist school of Vijnanavada, Sankarācārya accepts the doctrine of the reality of the external world.
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