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VEDÃNTIC MONISAI
and destruction are unpredicable of a real. A real is real always and so must remain constant. Tlie erroneous silver is unreal because it ceases to be when it is contradicted by knowledge of the shell. If a real were capable of origination and cessation like false silver, there would be no criterion possible for the distinction of real from unreal. It must therefore be admitted that constancy and continuity and consequently the absence of lapse from uniformity are the true characteristic of a real. But these tests are incapable of being applied to the objects of experience. The conclusion is inevitable that they cannot be real. The Jaina philosopher asks : What is the source of the knowledge of this peculiar nature of reality? The ultimate nature of things can be known by experience alone. Well, what is the ground for our belief that consciousness is existent and also is the proof of the existence of other things ? The answer must be that it is felt to be so. Consciousness is its own guarantor and proof of its own reality. As regards unconscious matter, its existence is established by means of consciousness. It cannot be asked why consciousness should be self-evidenced and matter be dependent upon consciousness for the proof of its existence. The question is a question of fact, and not of reason. The nature of thing is inalienable and must be accepted to be what it is. Can anybody answer why fire should be hot and water cold, and not vice versa ? No, because it is a question of fact. Similarly the nature of reality is to be deduced from the testimony of experience. The existence of things which are experienced is obvious and self-evident. If you call in question their credentials, the fact of existence and consciousness which are posited by the Vedāntist to be the ultimate reality will not also be immune from such doubting interrogation. The result will be unrelieved scepticism or universal negation. The Vedāntist had the good sense and sanity not to acquiesce in this suicidal estimation. The Jaina would l'espectfully and earnestly ask the Vedāntist to carry his deterinination of reality consistently to its natural conclusion. He accepts existence to be the ultimate truth solely on the testimony of experience. But as experience records change as the integral character of existence or rather of things felt to be existent, it beats one's understanding why change should be declared as unreal appearance. The Valāntist has contended that change involves lapse of being into non-being and this is a case of self-contradiction. Reality must not be self-contradictory. But as change is fraught with contradiction, it is to be unceremoniously throwi overboard as an unreal and unjustifiable appearance. But the Jaina is a frank realist, and is candid in his confession of faith in the verdict of experience. The Vedantist thinks that there is pure being which is incompatible with pure nonbeing. But pure being is an abstraction, and we have no experience of it. So also is the case with pure non-being. What we find in experience, including
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