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JAINISM
Mahāvīra's main fort of defence is apparent from his words: "O Indrabhūti ! the self is indeed directly cognizable to you also. Your knowledge about it which consists of doubts, etc., is itself the self. What is proved by your own experience should not be proved by other means of knowledge. No proof is required. . . (for) the existence of happiness, misery, etc.” Also “the self is directly experienced owing to ahampratyaya - the realization as 'I' in 'I did', 'I do', and 'I shall do', - the realization which is associated with the functions pertaining to all the three terms."'11 That Mahāvīra's maintaining that no proof is required for maintaining the existence of a soul is not a case of evading a reply to a basic question is evident from his specifically stating that the existence of a doubt presupposes a doubter. He asks : “If the object about which one has doubt is certainly non-existent, who has a doubt as to whether I do exist or I do not exist ? Or, Gautama (Indrabhūti !) When you yourself are doubtful about your self, what can be free from doubt ?”:12
The self-validity of the existence of a thing, Mahāvīra maintains, is evident from the self-evident characteristic of the attributes themselves. He says : "The self which is the substratum of its attributes is self-evident owing to the attributes being self-evident, as is the case with a pitcher. For, on realizing the attributes, the substratum, too, is realized."'13 The self whose attributes are beyond doubt, point to the existence not merely of the attributes but of their substratum as well. The relation that obtains between a substance and its attributes is of the reciprocal type and as such we cannot conceive of either of the relata without reference to the other. For the same reason, from the existence of one of the relata the existence of the other can be inferred.
Moreover, sometimes it is seen that the qualities such as sensation, perception, memory, etc., are absent even when the body is present as in sound sleep, death, etc. 14 From this it is evident that the body is not necessarily related to the mental activities, i.e., there is some substance other than the body and that is the soul.
Lastly, the body which is nothing but material (pudgala) cannot
11 Ibid., 1554-56 12 Ibid., 1557 13 Ibid., 1558 14 See M.L. Mehta, Jaina Psychology, p. 38
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