________________
LOKÄYATA-MATERIALISM.
931
What is meant is that these feelings as appearing for the first time during the prosent life have not been habitually repeated during this life ;-this may not be a Reason directly proving the fact of these feelings being due to habitual practice during previous lives; but what is stated as the Reason being admitted to be a fact, it could not be without some cause; if it were without cause, it would be there at all times ;-hence if another life were not there, what could be the cause of the strength of the said feelings of Love, Hatred, etc. ? Hence the conclusion is that the habitual repetition during past lives is the cause of the said strength of the feelings and thus the other world' becomes established.
The external objective excitant cannot be the cause of the feelings in question ; because in many cases, even when these excitants are there, the feelings of Love, etc. do not appear at all, --if there happen to be present a feeling of Disgust against the evil character of the things.-The term
pratisarlehyana', disgust stands for that counter-feeling against Love, etc., which is based upon the idea of evil.Sometimes, even when the excitant is not there, the said feelings of Love, etc. actually appear. Hence the presence of the feelings cannot be due to the presence of the excitants.
Then again, even in regard to past and future things, the feelings are found to be strong in the man in whom the feeling of Disgust has ceased, and feelings due to the absence of pleasure have become intensified through strong desire. And when there is no change in the presence or absence of a certain thing, or the presence or absence of another thing, the one cannot be the cause of the other; otherwise these would be incongruities.
For the following reason also, the feelings of Love, etc. cannot be due to the presence of the excitants :Because, if the feelings appeared exactly in acordance with the excitants, they would proceed from the excitant exactly in the same manner as the Cognition of Blue and other things (which always proceeds in accordance with these things) :-the feelings however do not proceed in this way: on the contrary, the said feelings appear in rogard to the Woman and other things, in men who attribute to the woman the form of their own lasting pleasure, etc. which have not been experienced at all; and yet the objects (woman, etc.) are not actually possessed of the said form of goodness, etc.;--and when a thing is devoid of a certain form, it cannot be the excitant or basis of tho Cognition of that form; otherwise it would lead to absurdity.
Tui.c. for those rousons, the foelings of Lovo, ote, as pertaining to imposed things must be reguled as devoid of an objective basis (or excitant); and from this it follows that the said feelings of Love, etc., when they appear for the first time during present life, proceed from the repeated oxperience of similar foolings in the past.-(1948-1953)
T
.
Question :-"If Objects are not the excitants of the foolings, then how is it that feelings of Love, oto, appear only when the Objects are present ?"
Answer :