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śramaņa, Vol. 57, No. 1 January March 2006
THE CONCEPTION OF DEATH IN BUDDHISM AND JAINISM
Dr. Pramod Kumar Singh*
Death has been variously conceived as the great equalizer, the fountainhead of existential fear and also as the basis of rejuvenation. The exploration of death-consciousness and its ontological counterpart has to do justice to these apparently incoherent aspects. Philosophers of these two philosophical traditions are in no hurry to explain away this crucial experience. Both discover a new meaning of this existential phenomenon. Death assumes a new significance by being transferred into the threshold of a life of freedom and beatitude. Thus, they reach the paradoxical position that death may be preferable to life when an individual is capable of tearing asunder the cobwebs and enter the realm of truth, freedom and illumination.
The Buddhist approach to death is unique in itself because the Buddha did not accept the permanent existence of the Self. The non-existence of self or Anattă is one of his most prominent doctrines of Buddhism. Like the Greek philosopher Heracleitus, the Buddha is a philosopher of change. Therefore, it is easy for him to accept death as moment of change. The reality of change implies the reality of time and death. We can contrast this philosophical outlook with the philosophers of eternal or non-changing reality like the Vedānta. Samkarācārya does not accept change as characteristic of reality. Therefore, he relegates death to the world of illusion. But for the Buddha, death belongs to the world of reality.
But the Buddhist position is basically different from the Cārvāka position, which considers death as the final end of human existence. * Former Post Doctoral Fellow, I.C.H.R., New Delhi.
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