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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
152
Atman and Mokså
of the phenomenal nature of the world follows from the doctrine of dependent origination (प्रतीत्य समुत्पादवाद). It is called a theory of 'dependent origination' which means, that a thing comes into existence when certain other relations are present. Because a thing cannot exist by itself and in itself, its existence becomes conditioned. It does not exist as an independent and unconditioned thing. According to the Madhyamikas, a thing exists through its vast congeries of relations with other things. Causality is reduced by them to the co-existence and co-ordination of the innumerable momentary existences. In fact, the Madhyamikas did not admit any such thing as causality. Cause and effect are relative terms and one depends upon the other for its existence. Neither can exist apart from the other. Neither cause nor effect exists by itself.
According to the Mahāyānists and especially the Madhyamikas, all parts or elements are unreal (s'ünya mt), and only the whole or the complexes are real. The definition of Reality (tattva) in Mahāy. anism is the following one. “Uncognisable from without, quiescent, undifferentiated in words, unrealisable in concepts, non-plural - this is the essence of reality."For them no dependent existence is a real existence just as borrowed money never makes one's real wealth. Nothing is therefore, intelligible by itself. Everything lives in and through other things, or in and through the infinite relations of things
1 Stcherbatsky Tb. : The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāna, p. 41.
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