Lord Mahavira Vol 02

Author(s): S C Rampuria
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute

Page 87

78
Lord Mahavira the problems of knowledge are. He seems to have felt in common with Buddha that the question could be settled only by first settling what cannot be the problems of knowledge. Sanjaya, Mahâvîra and Buddha
So far as this latter question was concerned, the sceptic Sanjaya had already suggested the lines of its answer. The questions with regard to which Sanjaya suspended judgment were in fact the questions to be excluded from the problems of knowledge. Is the world eternal, or is it non-eternal? Is it both eternal and non-eternal, or is it neither eternal nor non-eternal ? Is the world finite or infinite ? Is there any individual existence of man after death, or is there not? Is the absolute truth seen face to face by a seer, comprehended by a philosopher, part of real tangible existence or not? It was with regard to these and similar questions that Sanjaya refused to put forth any affirmative proposition. To avoid error he contented himself with the four famous negative propositions : A is not B; A is not not B.63 A is not both B and not-B, A is not neither B nor not-B. It is with regard to the self-same questions that Mahâvîra declared : “From these alternatives you cannot arrive at truth; from these alternatives you are certainly led to error.”64 "The world exists, the world does not exist. The world is unchangeable, the world is in constant flux. The world has a beginning, the world has no beginning. The world has an end, the world has no end, etc. The persons who are not well-instructed thus differ in their opinions, and profess their dogmas without reason."65 And these were precisely the questions which Buddha regarded as unthinkable (acinteyyani) on the ground that those who will think about them are sure to go mad, without ever being able to find a final answer, or to reach apodeictic certainty. "66 Syadvada
However, even with regard to these problems Mahâvîra differed from Sanjaya, and Buddha from both, if not in any other respect, at least in attitude. For the cowardly manner in which Sanjaya tried to evade them shows that he did not himself feel certain whether error lay on his side or on that of others. As a successor and younger contemporary of Sanjaya, Mahâvîra's