Sramana Tradation

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

Page 85

Śramaņa Tradition
sāyayavatva mean inhering in the parts ? In that case even partness (avayavatva) could become a whole ! Does it mean being produed by parts'? This would, however, beg the question; or does sävayavatva mean having spatial parts or extendedness' (pradeśavatva ) ? If it is a plainly false reason because the sky too has Pradeśas but is not a product or effect. Being the object of the notion of production' does not help, because such notions are not always literally or accurately applied. Inherence in causal existence' is meaningless because inherence itself has no plausible meaning. To argue from the changeability ( vikāritva) of the world would not prove its being an effect because everything that has being must change thereby. God himself must, to be real, have modal change. How else would He create the world, if He remained totally changeless ? If then, change means production and a producing cause, the notion of a First Cause become self-contradictory. The fact is that the world like God is ever-existent. It exists and changes and has always existed and changed. Even if one postulates cause for such production, it does not follow that the cause should be intelligent or perfect.
The śramaņic opposition to the idea of God as creator arises essentially from their belief in the autonomy and centrality of the doctrine of Karman. That there is some order and structure in the world and some purposiveness in the adaptation of life to environment need not be questioned. It may prove that the organization and happen. ings in the world have some relation to mental purposes and volitions but it does not prove that a single, perfect and eternal mind is the cause of such partial order. In fact, if we see structures like a city we have to conclude that they owe their origin not to one but to many and fallible minds. There are even accidental structures.
At best we can only be justified in thinking of the working of human minds, directly or through the unseen force of Karman, to understand whatever order we do find in the world. In the Vedic tradition the universe is the expression of a personal will. In the Śramanic tradition it is determined by an impersonal natural law. This view is distinguished from simple naturalism by its belief that the moral law is not inerely a human idea but a causally operative law in nature,