Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

SR No.: 001190
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 266
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Ethics, & Principle
File Size: 13 MB

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RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE JAINAS
variety of aspects. The analytical method is known in the Jaina literature as Naya-vāda (consideration of aspects). The synthetical method is known as Syād-vāda (doctrine of the inexpugnability of the inextricably combined properties and relations) or Anekānta-vāda (doctrine of non-isolation). Voluminous works on this subject have been written by Jaina scholars, all in manuscripts still unpublished.
In illustration of what I have thus stated, I may remark that to a person in whom the first germ of reflection is just bom the universe is a vague something, an utter mystery--at the most, a unity without differentiation; analysis leads him to consider its various aspects. He is struck with the change he sees everywhere. The constantly running waters of rivers, decaying plants and vegetables, dying animals and human beings, strongly impress him that nothing is permanent. His first generalization, therefore, will be that the world is transitory. After years of research and reflection, he may learn that the things that pass away still exist in an altered condition somewhere. He may now generalize that nothing is annihilated; that notwithstanding the changes that are visible everywhere, the world, taken as a whole, is permanent. Both generalizations are true from different points of view; each by itself is an abstraction. When one learns to synthesize, he puts together the various aspects he has found of the world, and realises that the integrality of truth consists in the indissoluble combination of all the possible aspects. The inherence of contrary aspects in a single idea or object seems impossible to the unsynthetic mind. Sankara, the well-known Vedānta scholar, has fallen into a great error when he states that the Jaina doctrine should not be accepted, because “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 that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment." The Jainas do not teach that a thing can be hot and cold at the same moment, but they do teach that a thing cannot be hot absolutly, and cannot be cold absolutely; it is hot under.