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III. X11]
CRITICISM OF THE VEDANTA AVIDYA
197
that knowledge is futile in respect of a person free from nescience is also not based upon truth. Freedom from nescience makes perfect knowledge possible, and this knowledge is not futile because everybody will admit that it is covetable for its own sake. So how can knowledge be futile for a person free from nescience? The assertion of Sureśvara again that the determination of nescience in a person is possible only so long as he is under the hypnotic spell of nescience is entirely wide of the mark. The differentiation of nescience from truth is possible only when a person discovers the truth. Were a person completely under the spell of nescience such differentiation would not be possible. The truth of the proposition asserted here is borne out by the evidence of dream. The dreaming man cannot distinguish between truth and error, because he is completely enmeshed in nescience in dream. So Sureśvara's categorical affirmation that determination of nescience is possible only under the sway of nescience is entirely opposed to fact. It might be contended that if nescience as error be a true cognition, then there will be no reason for its being contradicted by a subsequent cognition ; but the fact that it is so contradicted shows that it is entirely false. But the Jaina asserts that there is no incompatibility in the situation. Error is regarded as a true cognition only in a sectional reference. It is true so far as its reference to the subject is concerned, and also so far as it is felt by the person, that is, with reference to its own being. When the deluded person thinks that he is ignorant or in error, he does not make a false assertion. This shows how a cognition, though true so far as it goes and so far as its particular reference is concerned, can be contradicted by a subsequent experience and thus be false in some particular reference. The dilemma raised by Sureśvara that nescience is not intelligible whether the self is known or not known proceeds upon partial appraisal of truth. There is no incompatibility in the fact that a partially illumined person is subject to error and illumination alternately or simultaneously. Nescience is impossible of realization only in the case of perfect knowledge and total ignorance. But the latter alternative is impossible because there is no self which is totally devoid of knowledge, which is the possible outcome of total ignorance. As regards the former alternative the contention is only partially true. A man with perfect knowledge is not subject to nescience. But he realizes and transcends his nescience only with the dawn of such knowledge.
na cã 'vidyāvām eva sthitvā 'sye 'yam avidye 'ti kalpyate, sarvasya vidyavasthāyāın evä 'vidyetara-vibliäga-niscayāt svapnadyavidyā-daśāyām tadabhāvāt-Ibid.
? na cã "tmani kathañcid avidite 'py avidye 'ti no 'papadyate, bădhā'virodhāt. kathañcid vijñāte 'pi vā 'vidye 'ti nitarām ghatate, viditātmana eva tadbadhakatva-viniściteh kathañcid badhitäyā buddher mrşātva-siddhenIbid.
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