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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
500
Atman and Moksa
limitations. It is, in fact, indefinable and indescribable since our thoughts are based upon the duality of the subject and the predicate. It is inconceivable in the sense that it cannot be precisely thought of with the available conceptual method which necessarily presupposes the distinctions and limitations of the subject and the predicate. Our language falls short of its description and hence, it is indescribable (अनिर्वचनीय). It is indescribable in the sense that it is beyond any possible description. It escapes every kind of description which is based upon finite characteristics of things. It is unique in itself. It is imperceptible and uninferrable; it can be known only from its descriptions given either in the S'ști or by the sages who actually lived it. Slamkara, therefore, says“The true nature of the cause of the world on which final emancipation depends cannot, on account of its excessive abstractness, even be thought of without the help of the holy texts, for.... it cannot become the object of perception, because it does not possess qualities such as form and the like, and as it is devoid of characteristic signs, it does not lend itself to inference and the other means of right knowledge."1 He further points out that it cannot be understood by our reason also since it is a fact that what a logician endeavours to establish as perfect knowledge based upon reason is demolished by another on rational grounds.? The last and the only
: S'amkara (Com.) on Vedānta Sūtras. Tr. Thibaut, 2.1.11, Vol. I, p. 316.
3 Ibid. p. 316
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