| Philosophy and Religion / J. C. Chatterji: Hindu Realism |
Jagadish Chandra Chatterji
Hindu Realism
B—The Synthetic Aspect
’Life Is Suffering’—Its Meaning.
Constant Rise and Fall in States. How Compulsory Existence in Specific Forms is Suffering.
12. And as all beings of imperfect knowledge and wisdom are liable to make mistakes in regard to the practice of Dharma, and as some of them violate Dharma through weakness, it happens there is always a climbing up and down of beings in the hierarchy of the universe.1 | 2
And even those rising constantly cannot have their superior places secured for ever. For the latter are gained only by worth. And as worth can never be unlimited and must come to an end, sooner or later, with the vanishing of worth, the position which is gained as a result of it must also be lost.
In any case, to maintain a superior position in the hierarchy, one must always be on the watch lest his Dharma not being done properly he may be outdistanced by others. Therefore he can never have real and abiding Peace and Bliss.
Thus existence in any one of these rungs of the universal ladder is wanting always in permanent Peace and Bilss and is, in this sense at least, if in no other, full of misery, sorrow and suffering.
Footnotes
1. Kandali. p. 281.
2. It is not maintained by the Hindus that there is no happiness or enjoyment in the world, but that all happiness, however great, is ever tinged with suffering and at best perishable. See on this Nya. Su., IV. i. 55-58, with Bhash. and Vart. on the same.
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