Sramana Tradation

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 81

Sramana Tradition
determination of individual destiny'. He then goes on to answer the atheistic Mimāṁsakas who accept Paraloka and its Alaukika sadhana but substitute God by the Vedas. Udayana points out that the validity of utterances is not self-evident and that revelation itself has a beginning and its authority derives from the person who makes the revelation --
pramāyāḥ paratantratvāt sargapralayasambavāt/
tadanyasminnanāśvāsāt na vidhyantara sambhavah // 'No other rule is acceptable since valid knowledge depends on a quality which the cause of knowledge may possess and because the creation and dissolution of the world occur periodically and, finally, because there can be no assurance of truth except from a revelation by God'.
Udayana then turns against the Buddhists who argue the nonexistence of God as of the soul from their non-perception (Anuplabdhi). It may be rebutted that it is only yogyanupalabdhi which can prove nonexistence, not ayogyānupalabdhi. If something is by its nature perceivable in a certain manner and in fact not so perceived, then it would be right to infer its non-existence. But if something is by its nature not amenable to perception, we could not infer its non-existence from its non-perception. The atoms, for example, do not cease to exist because they are not perceived. Even the soul is not perceived during deep sleep but does not on that account cease to be. The Buddhists counter this by arguing that in that case even the hare's horn could not be rejected and one could propound a syllogism like 'saśaḥ śrngi paśutyāt', 'The hare has horns because it is an animal.' Suppose it is argued that the 'horn' is as such perceptible and hence its non-perception on the head of the hare is its sufficient disproof. In that case it will have to be similarly accepted that being a sentient creator of the universe, God would have a body like the potter etc., and as such should be held amenable to perception. Udayana's answer is that a sentient creator does not need to have a body and a bodyless creator not being amenable to perception, is in no wise disproved by nonperception.
The supposedly Jain objection that the knowledge which God has, not being the knowledge of something previously unknown, would cease to have the character of Pramā, is then disposed off by Udayana by