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(A) NYÃYA DOCTRINE OF THE 'SELF".
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question may be put-In what sense are these without SouDoes it mean that they serve no useful purpose for the Soul' and so on (as has been urged by Uddyotakara, in the passage quoted above). If so, then (a) you affirm the fact of all external things, like the Jar, being oqually without Soul.-on the ground of their being not occupied by the Soul, or on account of their being the receptacle of the Soul's experiences ;—and yon deny the absence of Soul in regard to the Living Body, in the assertion The Living Body is not without Soul'; and from this denial you deduce the conclusion that it is the Living Body alone that is rith Soul, and not the dend body, or the Jar knd other things. In the same manner, we also prove the fact that the Living Body is withou Soul, because it is a thing and so forth' (as explained above).
- Thus the various alternatives put forward Is it meant that the Body serves no useful purpose for the Soul' and so forth.--are entirely out of place; as 'absence of Soul' has been admitted by you also (in regard to certain things).
Further, it luas been alleged that there is no Corroborative Instance in support of the assertion that the Body serves no useful purpose for the Soul" -This is not right. Because it is possible to set up the following argument-When one thing does not add any peculiar property to another thing, it cannot be regarded as serving any useful purpose for this latter,c.g. the Vindhya of the Himalaya ;-the Body and the rest do not add any peculiarity to the character of the Soul, which remains eternally of one miform character:-hence the wider factor not being present (the less extensive factor cannot be admitted). -The Probans put forward in this argument cannot be said to be unproven', inadmissible, becanse the additional property not being anything distinct from the Boul itself, any adding to it would mean the * adding to the Soul itself; and this would imply the transience of the Soul. If, on the other hand, the additional property' be held to be distinct from the Soul itself, -as there would be no basis for any connection between that property and the Soul, there would be no such idea as that this property bolongs to the Soul'.-From all this it follows that for an Eternal Entity, there is nothing that can serve a useful purpose; as, in regard to such an Entity, it could not do anything at all.
It has been further alleged - Who is there who regards the Soul as the Body 1'-This again is not right; there are actually some people who describe the Body, etc. as being transubstantiation of the Soul' (Spirit) : e.g. the Followers of the Upanişads (Vedantins). So that the denial in ques. tion may well be regarded as urged against these people.
Then again, it has been argued that the preposition nie' (in the term 'nirätmakam') must pertain to the term that follows after it: hence it behoves the other party to say what is it that is with Soul (which is denied by the negative Preposition)?"--This also is entirely irrelevant. What is denied by the negative Proposition cannot be a real positive entity, in fact it is only a conceptual entity that may be denied ; a real positive entity can never be denied. Thus then, what is denoted by the negative compound ("nirātmaka, without Soul) is that particular entity which the other party has conceived through illusion; as it is only with reference to such an entity that the said denial is made, in order to proclaim that the other party entertains
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