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PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
Knowledge of identity is believed to lead to the perfect emancipation of the self, because it is assumed to be destructive of nescience which has induced bondage. But if nescience be an independent entity like the Absolute and be coeval with the Absolute from the beginningless time, it will be as eternal as the Absolute itself. And the bondage also will be an eternal fact. Sureśvara answers that the nature of nescience cannot be determined by an organ of knowledge. Nescience is not capable of being determined by logic yet it cannot be denied that it exists. The individual feels that he is ignorant of many things. He is as certain of his ignorance as he is of his own existence. The individual is directly aware that he is a conscious being. So consciousness and existence are inalienable characteristics of the individual self. From the authority of revelation as well as the evidence of logic the self is known to be identical with the Absolute Brahman. And we have seen that nescience is not possible in the Absolute and the individual alike. Sureśvara maintains that this is not the correct approach for determining the relation of nescience. To deny the existence of nescience would be contradiction of a felt fact. So, however irrational and illogical the concept of nescience may appear to be, its actual existence has got to be admitted by all. It is true that the conception of nescience as an independent entity is an absurd hypothesis. We find it from our study of the Upaniṣads that nescience is totally destroyed by knowledge of the reality. This is also the finding of incontestable experience. Our ordinary errors such as the perception of shell for the silver are found to be annihilated when followed by correct knowledge of the reality. This would be impossible and also unaccountable if nescience were an eternal verity. It must be admitted that there is no raison d'être for error. It is possible only when the conditions of knowledge are given a false twist by something superadded to them. It is absolutely unintelligible why should there be a deviation from the normal standard. Certainly this deviation cannot be the normal law as this would make the emergence of correct knowledge and cancellation of the false knowledge preceding it an impossibility. What holds good of nescience operating in the individual must be true of it in its cosmic aspect also. So nescience cannot be an eternal verity like the Absolute. Nor can it be an independent entity as in that case there will be no ground for positing it. It is felt by us all that we are beset by limitations on all sides and we are not satisfied with our present condition. We always try to transcend it as an undesirable obsession. So nescience cannot have an independent existence outside consciousness. That it is an internal fact always felt in association with consciousness is also the finding even of the realists as we have seen in the course of our examination of the views of the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika and Sankhya-Yoga schools. It is regarded as a psychical fact and this shows its intimate
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