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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
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Pārva-Mimāmsā
they do not hold that the soul has consciousness as its essential or constituent characteristic. According to both, knowledge or consciousness is a separable mode or property of the soul. Sometimes, as in deep sleep, the soul lies even without its own consciousness or self-consciousness. Their position is similar to that of the Nyaya Vaiseṣikas who also hold that consciousness is an adventitious characteristic of the soul, it being separable from it. Like the Nyāya Vais'eṣikas the Mimāṁsakas hold that the mind is absolutely necessary to cause consciousness in the soul which acts only as the substratum of it. Kumārila, like the Naiyāyikas, holds that the soul is an object of direct perception by the mind but Prabhakara like the Vais'eşikas holds on different grounds that the soul is not known directly but by inference. Kumārila and Prabhakara both agree in holding that the soul acts as the substratum of all cognitions and experiences of different kinds. S'abara did not go into so much of details but he seems to hold that the soul is self-illumined in a definite way, in so far as it is known only to the person concerned and not to other persons. A. B. Keith points out a little discrepancy in the writings of Kumārila. He says'Kumārila, however, adopts in the Tantravārtika the doctrine that the soul is pure consciousness, though he distinguishes it from cognition, but this characteristic is hardly more than a verbal derivation from the view of Prabhakara, as far as practical results go."1
1 Keith A. B.: The Karma-Mimämsä, p. 71.
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
For Private And Personal
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