Jaina Philosophy of Non Absolutism

SR No.: 001213
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Satkari Mookerjee, S N Dasgupta
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 314
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, B000, & B025
File Size: 18 MB

Page 281

The Nyāya Conception of Universals
259 co-existence of all universals will result in confusion. It is a fact that the cow-universal co-exists with the horse-universal. But that does not make a cow to be understood as a horse or vice versa. It is inherence and not mere existence that determines the cognition of an individual in terms of class-character. The horse-universal inheres in the individual horse and not in the cow. If the different universals were admitted to co-inhere in the same individual, the difficulty alleged by the Buddhist would be irrefutable. But the Naiyāyika never admits this possibility of co-inherence of different universals.
The question where the universal should inhere can be decided by the evidence of experience alone. That the cowuniversal inheres in the individual called 'cow' and not in the horse is proved by the very fact that it is felt there and not elsewhere. Nor can there be any inherent impossibility in the co-existence of different universals since they are not objects of limited dimension. It is only seen in the case of the latter entities that one excludes the other from its locus. The horse and the cow cannot co-exist in the same substratum. But the entities like space and time which are not subject to limitations of dimension are in a different position. In these cases the existence of one does not cancel the existence of the other since the opposition imposed by dimension is absent. Universals also share this character and so their co-existence does not involve any difficulty.
The distinction between its existence in and by itself and its inherence and consequential manifestation in an individual is essential to the understanding of a universal and its function. The difficulties raised by the Buddhist mainly spring from their deliberate refusal to subscribe to this distinction. In fact, the Naiyāyika considers universals to be self-existent principles. The Individual only serves to manifest its being and the existence or nonexistence of the individual does not induce any modification in the manner of being of a universal. The proposition the cowuniversal is in the cow' would be illegitimate if it were understood to connote the actual existence of the cow-universal in the individual.". The position would be legitimate if the copula
1. tathả ca pinde gotvam iti vyavahāro na mukhyaḥ kintu lakşaņikah. ATVB, p. 407.