Jinamanjari 2002 04 No 25

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

Page 55

However, when "tries to propound his own theory of maya according to which the whole of external, reality is converted into a dream world of unreality, he drops out the reality of the external world." 15
Kundakunda has regarded both chetana and achetana entities as not only distinct and independent of each other, but also as uncreated and indestructible ultimate realities that exist permanently. However, Sankarācārya following the Vedantic pantheism has attempted to source achetana entity also to Brahman despite the fact he has, under the adhyasa, conceded to the fundamental difference between the two. On the contrary, Kundakunda has a philosophized dictum, according to which, the achetana non-Self and the chetana Self cannot be produced by the same cause. Therefore, Sankarācārya's argument that the Brahman to be taken as both chetana and actetana entities completely deviates from his assertion in his Bhāsya that there exists a fundamental difference between the two -- the chetana and the achetana.''
According to Kundakunda, there two different causes, upādana kārana (material cause) and nimitta kärana (instrumental cause). Upādana karana must be identical with its effect, as there can be no difference in nature and attributes. In order to strengthen the thesis, he has used analogies: from clay only a mud pot can be produced; out of gold only a golden ornament is possible, and out of gold a mud pot nor out of clay a golden ornament be obtained. Following this doctrine of upādana and nimitta käraņa, Kundakunda has put forth the view that the chetana cause can only produce chetana effects, and that non-chetana cause can only produce non-chetana effects.
Strangely the Vedantic doctrine that maintains the Brahman to be the ultimate cause of all reality also admits the non-difference in cause and effect. Even Sankarācārya has admitted that "the effect is non-different from the cause," when he has said: "Those who wish to produce sour milk do not employ clay, nor do those who intend to make jars employ milk and so on." "As the ideas of cause and effect on the one hand and of the qualities on the other are not separate ones, as for instance the ideas of a horse and a buffalo, it follows that the identity of the cause and the effect as well as of substance and its qualities has to be admitted.""
This suggests that Sankarācārya comes around the this doctrine of upādana and nimitta kārana of Kundakunda, and thus has maintained that the effect is present in the cause though only in the latent form. Clay is shaped into a jar and gold is transformed into an ornament. The jar as such is not present in clay already, nor is the
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