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174: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
Advaita Vedānta and Plurality of Souls
S.S. Suryanarain Śastri criticizes the Samkhyan conception of the plurality of souls as 'The Samkhyan demonstration of a plurality of spirits applies properly to the materially constituted empirical selves, not to the pure unchanging puruṣa. The Samkhya arguments proceed on the varying incidence of birth and death and the varying endowment of sense organs, etc. But birth and death do not happen to the purusa, nor does the puruşa have sense organs...the plurality of empirical selves is all that the Samkhyan arguments require." This criticism will certainly apply to the empirical selves, if the Sāṁkhya also admits the reality of the transcendental self as conceived by the Advaitin. For him the empirical self is not false as it is for the Advaitist. According to the Samkhya the plurality of purusas is besed on the variability of proportion of the three gunas.2 Hence the plurality of selves, which is established at one level of existence must also be true at another level. By saying that the plurality of selves is empirically true the Sāmkhyan position cannot be refuted, because the distinction between the transcendental and the empirical truths does not stand the test. Such a distinction is maintained on the postulation of māyā which, being absolutely unreal, stands perfectly ineffective. If we assign any reality to māyā, it becomes a dualism of Brahma and māyā. The aforesaid argument, can carry some weight, only if the truth of māyā can be held with all its unreality. Actually speaking the plurality of selves is well established on the ground of individuality of experience. Vidyānanda criticizes the thesis of Advaita Vedanta as "The perception of the one spirit is also delusive, because the experience of the self as one in the form of a delusion is also had in dreams, etc. If it is held that, as consciousness in general is always uncontradicted and is always free from delusion, then the general
1. Sānkhyakārikā of Iśvarkṛṣṇa (Edited by S.S.S. Śāstrī), Introduction. p.XIII
2. Ibid., p. 22 (verse 18)
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