Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 74

GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER
65
these results come to fruition, he will not remember their cause. To this Kumārila replies that remembrance has nothing whatever to do with the matter; the wise, who alone are worthy of sacrificing, realise in all their actions the law of retribution, even without remembering the facts of each case. Nor is it any argument against the eternity of the soul that it undergoes modifications; we see In actual experience abundant evidence of changes in man's condition in life without any cessation of the substantial identity, and we treat death as no more than a change through which the soul endures. The sea remains, despite the movements of its waves; the serpent uncoils, without change of essence.
To the theory of the substantial soul the Buddhist at once objects, and proposes instead the doctrine of the series of Idees, each of which gathers from its predecessor the impressions of its wending past. The performer, therefore, it is contended, is the same as the enjoyer, but this contention Kuinārila rejects. It is impossible to accept this view, he argues, unless the first idea and the last in the series, from performance to result, have a common substratum. Apart from the fact that, if ideas are really momentary, there can be no interaction and no series, it is impossible on the series theory to find any rational basis for action, since the doer will clearly not reap what he did, and action without rational ground is out of the question among men Moreover, the exact character of transmigration presents insuperable difficulties on the Buddhist theory. It is impossible for an immaterial idea to move about in a living body, much less to transfer itself from one body to another, T}. lul. in via subtle body which serves as an il.rur: Lar: ", one life and rebirth is denied by Vindhyavāsin, and unsupported by any evidence, nor, if it existed, is it clear how an idea would pass with it. Nor, again, can the existence of an idea in the embryo be explained The ernbryo has no sense organs and cannot have cognitions, and an idet is never known to exist save in the form of a cognition. Nor can it be supposed that the idea exists as a Latent potentiality in the embryo without a substratum, while if the sense organs are assuined to be the substratum