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111. XII]
CRITICISM OF THE VEDĀNTA AVIDYA
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admits that contradiction is the criterion of truth so long as it does not come in conflict with our indubitable experience and its data. Unity and plurality are equally felt facts, and causality is also a plain deduction from experience. So it is not possible to accept a theory which will contradict the very possibility of the data. As regards the logical difficulty of their relation, the Vedāntist also admits that unity and plurality are felt as related though he demurs to accept it as an ultimate truth on account of the logical contradiction. He however is not prepared to dismiss it as a fiction, because he has the courage of his conviction to assert that an unreality cannot have even an appearance of reality. He accordingly gives it the status of a quasireality. But the Jaina avers that this is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. The Vedāntist should overcome his diffidence and muster courage to declare that it must be real as it is not unreal. As for the logical incompatibility between unity and plurality, and identity and otherness, it is nothing but the figment of abstract logic which runs away from the reality as revealed in experience. It has been seen that the Vedāntist entirely relies upon experience when he denies the contention of the nihilist that unity is equally a false appearance as it is never felt in dissociation from plurality. The nihilist also denies the reality of consciousness as he denies the reality of its content, because in his view consciousness without a content and a content without consciousness are never felt, and so they must swim or sink together. From the standpoint of abstract logic, the nihilist's argument seems to be unimpeachable. The Vedāntist succeeds in refuting the nihilist's contention only by positing contradiction of experience as the criterion of falsity. The Jaina asks the Vedāntist to go a step further and accept the whole experience as true and admonishes him for accepting the dictates of a priori abstract logic in the interpretation and assessment of experience. When unity and plurality are equally felt, and identity and otherness are equally attested by experience, they should both be regarded as true. The Jaina admits, in common with the Vedāntist, that the effect is not determinable either as identical with or as different from the cause. He agrees with the Vedāntist in his contention that the combination of unity and plurality involves identity and otherness both. He also agrees with the Vedāntist that the relation cannot be both identity and non-identity, otherness and non-otherness, difference and non-difference because of the contradiction involved in it. The Vedāntist asserts that the world of appearance is accordingly indeterminable in terms of identity and difference, but its felt actuality places it in a different category which is not determinable either as identical with or as different from pure existence. The Jaina accepts this interpretation also. He thinks the world of experience involves both identity and difference. But it transcends and synthesizes them in a
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