Samipya 1991 Vol 08 Ank 01 02

Author(s): Pravinchandra C Parikh, Bhartiben Shelat
Publisher: Bholabhai Jeshingbhai Adhyayan Sanshodhan Vidyabhavan

Page 47

Gautama in bis Nyāyasūtra defines3 mokşa as the absolute cessation of misery. His commentators like Vätsyāyana, Uddyotakara and others have elaborated the concept of Gautama further. Though Jayanta Bhatta like his predecessors in his outstanding work Nyāyamanjari has explicated Gautamian notion of mokļa nevertheless, his definition is, as far as I understand, slightly different from his predecessors. However, it is mostly accepted and widely popular also. As will be clear from our following discussion, this is perhaps the reason why Anandabodha for his criticism has referred to Jayanta's view in the Nyāyamakaranda.
Jayanta, making a synthesis of Vaiseșika and Nyāya view i.e. the complete destruction of the nine qualities of the soul as mokşa, has been described by Nyāya as complete freedom from misery.4 Thus, according to Nyāya-Vaiseşika, the soul becomes devoid of all its qualities in the state of mokşa5 and attains its own nature, i.e. unconscious state. Not only there is a complete cessation of misery in this state, there is also complete cessation of pleasure in mokşa.
This is evidently clear in the Nyāyakandali of Sridhara, a Vaiseșika thinker. He says that just as fire is extinguished when the fuel is exhausted and does not appear again, similarly, mokşa is a state in which soul becomes devoid of merits and demerits and, therefore, does not get a body again. All the special qualities of soul get destroyed in mokşa and, therefore, the soul attains its original nature.
Professor Hiriyanna in his Indian Conception of Values describes the Nyāya view :
The ideal of life here is a state of complete cessation of suffering and not of the attainment of pleasure also. Its negative character is sbown by earliest description in the literature of the doctrine of apavarga or 'escape'. The self is restored to its normal state, which is one of absolute allofness not only from the objective world but also from other selves, though both of which, as real and eternal, will necessarily endure then. It is thus a state of absolute, blank. Since it is not only pain and pleasure that are adventitions to the self but also knowledge, desire, and so forth, the state of release is one in which the self has completely cast off its specific qualities. Accordingly, it not only transcends empirical life then, but also ceases to be the subject of experience in all its forms. It may, therefore, be characterised as a form neutral being.8
This is significant to say here that the above-said account of mokşa prior to Anandabodha's notice was victim of ardent criticism. The scholars are expected to be well-acquainted with the famous comment of Sriharsa, the author of the great work, Naişadhacarita.9
“He who propounded a system of doctrines to prove that salvation of sentient beings is a condition similar to that of stones is exactly as you know him to be a perfect ox when you have examined him".
Anandabodha's Criticism of Nyaya View of Moksa ]
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