Mahabharata 12.211.26

12.211.26

pratyakṣaṃ hyetayormūlaṃ kṛtāntaitihyayorapi |
pratyakṣo hyāgamo'bhinnaḥ kṛtānto vā na kiṃcana || 26 ||

He also discoursed upon that Delusion for whose sake is the practice of religion, and acts, and their fruits, and which is highly untrustworthy, destructible, unsteady, and uncertain. Sceptics say that when death (of the body) is seen and is a matter of direct evidence witnessed by all, they who maintain, in consequence of their faith in the scriptures, that something distinct from the body, called the Soul, exists are necessarily vanquished in argument. They also urge that one's death means the extinction of one's Soul, and that sorrow, decrepitude, and disease imply (partial) death of the Soul. He that maintains, owing to error, that the Soul is distinct from the body and exists after the loss of body, cherishes an opinion that is unreasonable. If that be regarded as existent which does not really exist in the world, then it may be mentioned that the king, being regarded so, is really never liable to decrepitude or death. But is he, on that account, to be really believed to be above decrepitude and death? When the question is whether an object exists or does not exist, and when that whose existence is asserted presents all the indications of non-existence, what is that upon which ordinary people rely in settling the affairs of life? Direct evidence is the root of both inference and the scriptures. The scriptures are capable of being contradicted by direct evidence. As to inference, its evidentiary effect is not much.