Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 241

230 VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO, 1 and not-A, which is implied by the occurrence of anger and pleasure which is the negation of the former. If both the predicates have to be true one has to admit that A is and is not. A is susceptible to anger and also to the negation of it in having pleasure. The two are contradictorily opposed being derived as they are from the basic contradiction of being and non-being.
The Sankhya and the Vedāntist are on the other hand not willing to surrender the unity of self-consciousness and in failing to reconcile identity with change they assert that the occurrence of contradictory attributes is to be predicated of the mind-stuff which is identified with the self (ātman) by the fiat of transcendent illusion. But this shifting of the contradiction to the mind from self places the former in the same uncomfortable predicament. The mind cannot be real since it is found to be fraught with self-contradiction. The Vedantist accepts the consequence and unhesitatingly declares that not only the mind but also the rest of the phenomenal entities are only apperance. The phenomenal order is governed by the law of causation. But causation is logically indefensible. The cause cannot be identical with the effect since the latter must be different numerically and qualitatively, from the former. Nor can the cause and effect be absolutely different since that would render the affiliation of the effect to the cause meaningless, They are both identical and different to all appearances. This is held to be impossible by the Vedāntist and the Negativists (Śünyavādi). The objective world is dismissed as a metaphysical impossibility by both of them. But whereas the Negativist refuses to believe in the duality of the mind and the self, for which there is no evidence in experience and thus declares the psychical subject as also appearance, the Vedantist, on the other hand, is adamant on the reality of the self. The self is held to be a transcendent unity which refuses to accommodate the different mental events as its attributes.
The Sankhya on the other hand does not subscribe to the theory of illusion. The objective world from the mind to gross elements is real on its own account though it embodies the different attributes. There is difference and also identity running in and through the varying attributes. The entity which changes is one and changing attributes are different and the two together form one integral whole. In other words, the difference and identity are not absolute and mutually exclusive. The Jaina philosopher agrees with the Sankhya philosopher in his assessment of the objective real. But he differs from him in respect of the subjective plane. The contention of the Buddhist Negativist that