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VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. I
So far as the Samkhya philosophers are concerned, the position of anekanta, endorsing multiple real with varying conflicting attributes as constitutive elements, will be seen to be endorsed by them in spite of their protestation to the contrary. They believe in the unitary consciousness as reflected in the mental modes (vrtti) which become practically identical with consciousness and each such mode envisages pleasure, pain and indifference in succession or simultaneously. As regards its external referent, say jar, it is found to vary in its transition from novelty by wear and tear. The globular shape of the jar and its colour etc. constitute its very body. The varying states are all predicable of the jar which maintains its identity throughout the transition. Internally the internal modes and externally the objects with their varying multiple character are attested facts of experience. The problem of the unification of one and many raised by the advocates of pure apriori logic is present in full in every such content of experience. To say that 'many' is an appearance and the one unitary substance is real essays to cut the Gordian knot and not to untie the tangle-strings. When both sides, the unity and plurality, are equally encountered, why should the plurality be guillotined? There is no ground for preferential treatment of the one at the expense of the other. It has been argued in defence that the substances qua spirit and qua matter are found to be unities without change, whereas the qualities and attributes are found to be transitory phases, and so if either of them is to be sacrificed in the interest of truth, the plurality must be jettisoned. The phases are not constant. They change, i. e. come and go. But the unity is persistent and ineluctable. There is a good deal of plausibility in this argument, but it cannot be accepted as the clincher. In spite of their transitional and temporary character, the reality of modes cannot be impugned. An unbaked jar is black and after its calcination in the furnace it becomes red and the red is relatively more durable. But that does not warrant us to suppose that the black colour of the uncalcinated jar is a false appearance. If one is to go by the rule of unity and persistency as the criterion of reality, one will have to accept a drab, unchanging, colourless and bloodless substance as the only reality. But substance without a quality as its content is equivalent to a blank cartridge with its content eviscerated. It is more straightforward to endorse the uncontradicted deliverance of experience and accept the things as they are found to be. This is the contention of the Jaina and he thinks that the Samkhya has to submit to this conclusion so far as prakṛti (prima materia), which is asserted to be a unitary principle and at the same time composed of three recalcitrant
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