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PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
[CH.
experience, including the principle of consciousness itself, is concrete being which is a unity of different entities. Thus we never come across a pure substance denuded of all qualities and actions. A substance is always a unity with the multiplicity of attributes. Why should the Vedantist scent contradiction in it? He should take the reality as a whole and the attempt to clip away a part of its character only bespeaks unwarranted zeal for abstract thinking. It is no doubt true that the diversity of reals encountered by experience exhibits existence as their universal trait. But the universality and continuity of this trait and the discontinuity of other traits are facts alike. The former should not be vested with truth and the latter dismissed as appearance.
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Similarly one should not read contradiction in the combination of identity and difference when they are endorsed by uncontradicted experience. The Vedantist accepts the aspect of identity and rejects the aspect of difference, because he thinks that the nature of reality is absolutely simple. But this is only the outcome of his bias for a priori logical thought in preference to and contradiction of experience. We could accept this assessment of reality if the dictates of a priori logic were found to be confirmed even in a single instance of our experience. The Vedantist is too astute a thinker not to be aware of this weakness in his position. Accordingly he appeals to dreamless experience. He asserts that pure existence is felt in this state. He also appeals to samadhi (ecstasy) in which the spiritual aspirant realizes the reality as a homogeneous simple unity bereft of intrinsic and extrinsic difference. But the state of samadhi is not attainable by all. If a gifted soul experiences it that does not afford any help to men of limited knowledge who are enquirers after truth. So it has no philosophical value. As regards dreamless experience it is not also beyond dispute. So the Vedäntist has to rely upon the revealed texts of the Upanisads and upon pure logic. So far as the Upanisadic texts are concerned, the interpretation of the monist is not accepted as the last word. There are other interpretations also. It may not be out of place to remark that the Jaina scriptures also have discussed these texts and have offered their own interpretation which is at variance with that of the monist. As regards pure logic, the Jaina attitude towards it has been elucidated in this work with as much clarity and precision as has been possible for us. The consequential objections of Sureśvara regarding bondage and emancipation do not cause much difficulty to the Jaina. The Jaina believes that bondage is a real condition of the self, and though existing from the beginningless time as coeval with the individual yet it is liable to be transcended. Emancipation is nothing but the disentanglement of the self from the karmic matter. The karmic matter is not destroyed but only pulled out. The pure nature of the
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