________________
69
world as real. On this point, the different schools of Vedāntists arrived at different conclusions, which, however need not detain us here.
In opposition to this Brahmanical doctrine of absolute and permanent Being, Buddha taught that all things are transitory; indeed his dying words were that all things that are produced must perish. The principal heresy, according to the Buddhists is the Atmavāda i. e. the belief that permanent being is at the bottom of all things, they are, as we should say, but phenomena or as Buddha expressed it, dharmas; there is no dharmin, no permanent substance of which the dharnias could be said to be attributes.
Thus the Brahmans and Buddhists entertained opposite opinions ou the problem of Being because they approached it from two different points of view. The Brahmanas exclusively followed the dictates of pure reason which force us to regard Being as permanent, absolute, and uniform; the Buddhists on the other hand, were just as one-sided in following the teaching of common experience according to which existence is but a succession of originating and perishing. Either view, the priori view of the Brahmans and the a posteriori view of the Buddhists is beset with many difficulties, when we. are called upon to employ it in explanation of the state of things as presented to us by our consciousness; difficulties which cannot be overcome without a strong faith in the paramount truth of the principle adopted.
The position taken by the Jainas towards the problem of Being is as follows:-Being, they contend, is joined to production, continuation and destruction (sad utpada-dhrauvya-vināśa yuktam) and they call their theory, the Theory of Indefiniteness (anèkāntavada) in contradiction to the theory of permanency (nitya-vāda) of the Vedantists and to the theory of transitoriness (vināśavāda) of the Buddhists. Their opinion comes to this. Existing things are permanent only as regards their substance, but their
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
