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III. XII]
CRITICISM OF THE VEDANTA AVIDYA
The Jaina would ask the monist: 'Why should you believe in monism and reduce moral and religious life to provisional validity as a makeshift and device for the achievement of the goal? Both the means and end are asserted by you to be destitute of ultimate reality. It is certainly extremely difficult to subscribe to the view that an unreal means can achieve reality, and falsehood can be the means of attaining truth. Why should ethical and religious life, not to speak of the natural world, be declared to be false? What is the logical justification behind this abnormal position which cuts away the very foundation of higher life and culture? The Vedanta philosophy seems to be a dangerous heresy not less than the Buddhist denial of soul.'
The Vedantist would assert in reply that all this criticism is inspired by sentimentalism and intellectual cowardice which refuses to face reality because it will upset the prejudices and superstitions fostered by nescience from the beginningless time. We cannot determine the nature of reality without having recourse to logic. If all the organs of valid cognition converge upon a particular position and compel us to accept it as the truth, we have to bow our heads to the inevitable. There may be sentimentalists who will shirk their duty to face truth squarely and will try to multiply their ranks by dissuading vacillating people from pursuit of the enquiry of truth. The doctrine of monism is not a figment of diseased imagination. It is proved by inference and authority alike. The Upanisadic texts are the records of funded experiences of ancient seers and sages who realized the ultimate mysteries of existence by unerring spiritual intuition. They still stand as compelling evidence and as a challenge. These truths have been realized again and again by persons whose name is Legion. They are public property and if an honest enquirer screws up his courage and elects to undergo the preparatory discipline he can realize that truth exactly in the same way as a student of science can verify the truth of the scientific discoveries in a laboratory. But the appeal to scripture and even unquestioning faith in its validity are not of very much avail except as aid and incentive to experiment by future enquirers of truth. Besides, these texts will not carry conviction to those who are fixed in their beliefs and traditions which they have inherited from the community in which they are born. But scripture is not the only resource with the Vedantist. The Vedantist banks upon ratiocination as an equally potent instrument for the realization of truth. The unreality of an independent objective world is deduced from an analysis of even an ordinary empirical judgment. Take for instance the trite experience 'I see the pen.' What is the status of the pen? The pen is felt as an object no doubt. But it is felt as a content of the cognition. It is felt
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