Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

Author(s): S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 50

46: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
insignificant." This amounts to the position that reality admits of analytic and synthetic judgments, and the validity of such partial comprehensions is not totally rejected by Hegel or Bradley.
(iii) Sankara on Partial Comprehensions
As regards Sankara's position it is very often said that he has not explained the world but has explained it away. To meet the criticisms of the opponents he distinguishes among the three levels of existence. Thus a sort of reality is assigned to all the prātibhāsika (ephemeral), the vyāvahārika (empirical) and the pārmārthika (absolute) worlds. Then in the same breath the principle of māyā along with its products in the form of ephemeral and empirical worlds is admitted to be absolutely unreal. It is on this ground that Sankara's explanation of the world is held to be insufficient. Max Müller points to the same difficulty as "To steer between all these rocks is no easy matter. Brahman, though called the material cause (upādāna) of the world, is himself immaterial, nay the world of which he is the cause, is considered as unreal, while at the same time cause and effect are held to be identical in substance".2 The absolute truth of the Brahman must mean the absolute untruth of the world. So the absolute defence of the one must lead to the absolute unreality of the other. Thus the conceptions of the ephemeral and empirical worlds are unable to explain the reality of the world. Still the empirical truths are valid though only in a particular world. Hence this much can be admitted about Sankara that for the validity of empirical truths the proper worlds must be taken into consideration. Whatever may be the status of these empirical truths this much can be accepted that Sankara has not totally discarded them.
(iv) Mādhyamika on Partial Comprehensions
The Madhyamika school of Buddhism, like Sankara's
1. H.L. Haldar: Neo Hegelianism, p. 242
2. Max Müller: Indian Philosophy, vol. II, p. 45