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SATYASASANA-PARĪKSĀ
consideration that it does not entail repudiation of anyone of the felt factsthe world and its cause the Absolute. Why should you postulate an irrational and unreal principle as the cause of the world process?
The Vedantist answers that after all his theory is the simplest of all. Moreover, it makes the postulation of a large number of irrational entities uncalled for. Thus the opponent who believes in the reality of the world process has to admit that it is both different and non-different from the Absolute. In the second place, he has to posit that bondage, though it is real and so uncaused, is liable to cessation. In the third place, he has to posit that emancipation is the product of religious and moral activity and is yet eternal. The monist only affirms nescience as the sole and sufficient condition of all these results. And though it exists from eternity alongside of and together with the Absolute, yet there is no logical difficulty in the fact that it is liable to annihilation, because it is felt to be unreal and so its disappearance does not entail logical contradiction which would be inevitable if it were real. But it might be argued that simplicity is not by itself a recommendation for a theory. If a multiplicity of things is necessitated by logical thought we cannot reject it for the sake of economy alone. But the Vedantist agrees that simplicity or multiplicity without the sanction of valid cognition is not a compelling consideration in the determination of reality. But if the multiplicity of categories asserted by the opponent is found to be contradicted by accredited sources of knowledge, the postulation of it will be logically indefensible. Now the believer in reality of the world has to assert that the relation between the world. and its cause is identity and difference both-a conception which is repugnant to all sources of knowledge. Secondly, he admits that the worldly career is a reality bereft of beginning in time, and to say that it is annihilated by true knowledge is opposed to the universally accepted proposition that a real uncaused and undated is eternal. Thirdly, it asserts emancipation to be the product of moral activity and yet to be eternal. This is opposed by the universal proposition that whatever is caused to happen at a particular time cannot but be liable to extinction. These are the major contradictions in the theory of the opponent, and there may be many more, if minor details are to be taken into account. As regards the Vedantist's theory, it only postulates nescience and this is not also an unwarranted assumption since it is endorsed by experience and scriptural authority alike. 1
The Jaina frankly confesses his inability to appreciate the argument of the
1 Cf. tvatpakṣe bahu kalpyam syat sarvam manavirodhi ca; kalpyavidyaiva matpakṣe să canubhava-samśrayā. -Sambandhavarttika, 182, quoted in SSP, p. 9.
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