This doctrine we meet as follows.—Your reasoning, we say, is inadmissible 'on account of the impossibility in one thing.' That is to say, it is impossible that contradictory attributes such as being and non-being should at the same time belong to one and the same thing; just as observation teaches us that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment. The seven categories asserted by you must either be so many and such or not be so many and such; the third alternative expressed in the words 'they either are such or not such' results in a cognition of indefinite nature which is no more a source of true knowledge than doubt is. If you should plead that the cognition that a thing is of more than one nature is definite and therefore a source of true knowledge, we deny this. For the unlimited assertion that all things are of a non-exclusive nature is itself something, falls as such under the alternative predications 'somehow it is,' 'somehow it is not,' and so ceases to be a definite assertion. The same happens to the person making the assertion and to the result of the assertion; partly they are, partly they are not. As thus the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the knowing subject, and the act of knowledge are all alike indefinite, how can the Tîrthakara (Jina) teach with any claim to authority, and how can his followers act on a doctrine the matter of which is altogether indeterminate? Observation shows that only when a course of action is known to have a definite result people set about it without hesitation. Hence a man who proclaims a doctrine of altogether indefinite contents does not deserve to be listened to any more than a drunken man or a madman.—Again, if we apply the Jaina reasoning to their doctrine of the five categories, we have to say that on one view of the matter they are five and on another view they are not five; from which latter point of view it follows that they are either fewer or more than five. Nor is it logical to declare the categories to be indescribable. For if they are so, they cannot be described; but, as a matter of fact, they are described so that to call them indescribable involves a contradiction. And if you go on to say that the categories on being described are ascertained to be such and such, and at the same time are not ascertained to be such and such, and that the result of their being ascertained is perfect knowledge or is not perfect knowledge, and that imperfect knowledge is the opposite of perfect knowledge or is not the opposite; you certainly talk more like a drunken or insane man than like a sober, trustworthy person.—If you further maintain that the heavenly world and final release exist or do not exist and are eternal or non-eternal, the absence of all determinate knowledge which is implied in such statements will result in nobody's acting for the purpose of gaining the heavenly world and final release. And, moreover, it follows from your doctrine that soul, non-soul, and so on, whose nature you claim to have ascertained, and which you describe as having existed from all eternity, relapse all at once into the condition of absolute indetermination.—As therefore the two contradictory attributes of being and non-being cannot belong to any of the categories—being excluding non-being and vice versâ non-being excluding being—the doctrine of the Ârhat must be rejected.—The above remarks dispose likewise of the assertions made by the Jainas as to the impossibility of deciding whether of one thing there is to be predicated oneness or plurality, permanency or non-permanency, separateness or norn-separateness, and so on.—The Jaina doctrine that aggregates are formed from the atoms—by them called pudgalas—we do not undertake to refute separately as its refutation is already comprised in that of the atomistic doctrine given in a previous part of this work.
34. And likewise (there results from the Jaina, doctrine) non-universality of the Self.
We have hitherto urged against the Jaina doctrine an objection resulting from the syâdvâda, viz. that one thing cannot have contradictory attributes. We now turn to the objection that from their doctrine it would follow that the individual Self is not universal, i.e. not omnipresent.—The Jainas are of opinion that the soul has the same size as the body. From this it would follow that the soul is not of infinite extension, but limited, and hence non-eternal like jars and similar things. Further, as the bodies of different classes of creatures are of different size, it might happen that the soul of a man—which is of the size of the human body—when entering, in consequence of its former deeds, on a new state of existence in the body of an elephant would not be able to fill the whole of it; or else that a human soul being relegated to the body of an ant would not be able to find sufficient room in it. The same difficulty would, moreover, arise with regard to the successive stages of one state of existence, infancy, youth, and old age.—But why, the Jaina may ask, should we not look upon the soul as consisting of an infinite number of parts capable of undergoing compression in a small body and dilatation in a big one?—Do you, we ask in return, admit or not admit that those countless particles of the soul may occupy the same place or not?—If you do not admit it, it follows that the infinite number of particles cannot be contained in a body of limited dimensions.—If you do admit it, it follows that, as then the space occupied by all the particles may be the space of one particle only, the extension of all the particles together will remain inconsiderable, and hence the soul be of minute size (not of the size of the body). You have, moreover, no right to assume that a body of limited size contains an infinite number of soul particles.
Well the, the Jaina may reply, let us assume that by turns whenever the soul enters a big body some particles accede to it while some withdraw from it whenever it enters a small body.—To this hypothesis the next Sûtra furnishes a reply.
35. Nor is non-contradiction to be derived from the succession (of parts acceding to and departing from the soul), on account of the change, &c. (of the soul).
Nor can the doctrine of the soul having the same size as the body be satisfactorily established by means of the hypothesis of the successive accession and withdrawal of particles. For this hypothesis would involve the soul's undergoing changes and the like. If the soul is continually being repleted and depleted by the successive addition and withdrawal of parts, it of course follows that it undergoes change, and if it is liable to change it follows that it is non-permanent, like the skin and similar substances. From that, again, it follows that the Jaina doctrine of bondage and release is untenable; according to which doctrine 'the soul, which in the state of bondage is encompassed by the ogdoad of works and sunk in the ocean of samsâra, rises when its bonds are sundered, as the gourd rises to the surface of the water when it is freed from the encumbering clay[415].'—Moreover, those particles which in turns come and depart have the attributes of coming and going, and cannot, on that account, be of the nature of the Self any more than the body is. And if it be said that the Self consists of some permanently remaining parts, we remark that it would be impossible to determine which are the permanent and which the temporary parts.—We have further to ask from whence those particles originate when they accede to the soul, and into what they are merged when they detach themselves from it. They cannot spring from the material elements and re-enter the elements; for the soul is immaterial. Nor have we any means to prove the existence of some other, general or special, reservoir of soul-particles.—Moreover, on the hypothesis under discussion the soul would be of indefinite nature, as the size of the particles acceding and departing is itself indefinite.—On account of all these and similar difficulties it cannot be maintained that certain particles by turns attach themselves to, and detach themselves from, the soul.
The Sûtra may be taken in a different sense also. The preceding Sûtra has proved that the soul if of the same size as the body cannot be permanent, as its entering into bigger and smaller bodies involves its limitation. To this the Gymnosophist may be supposed to rejoin that although the soul's size successively changes it may yet be permanent, just as the stream of water is permanent (although the water continually changes). An analogous instance would be supplied by the permanency of the stream of ideas while the individual ideas, as that of a red cloth and so on, are non-permanent.—To this rejoinder our Sûtra replies that if the stream is not real we are led back to the doctrine of a general void, and that, if it is something real, the difficulties connected with the soul's changing, &c. present themselves and render the Jaina view impossible.
36. And on account of the permanency of the final (size of the soul) and the resulting permanency of the two (preceding sizes) there is no difference (of size, at any time).
Moreover, the Jainas themselves admit the permanency of the final size of the soul which it has in the state of release. From this it follows also that its initial size and its intervening sizes must be permanent[416], and that hence there is no difference between the three sizes. But this would involve the conclusion that the different bodies of the soul have one and the same size, and that the soul cannot enter into bigger and smaller bodies.—Or else (to explain the Sûtra in a somewhat different way) from the fact that the final size of the soul is permanent, it follows that its size in the two previous conditions also is permanent. Hence the soul must be considered as being always of the same size—whether minute or infinite—and not of the varying size of its bodies.—For this reason also the doctrine of the Arhat has to be set aside as not in any way more rational than the doctrine of Buddha.
37. The Lord (cannot be the cause of the world), on account of the inappropriateness (of that doctrine).