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

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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
us to dispense with the plurality of universals? If it could do this, that would be a positive advantage no doubt. But this is quite impossible. We have already seen that there must be different types of similarity. The similarity of cows as a class is different from the similarity of buffaloes as another class. Thus there will be as many types of similarity as there are classes, each different from the other. But this is nothing but a reinstatement of the different universals in a different guise.
The admission of similarity as a relation again makes the admission of a core of identity in the terms inevitable as we have seen that relation is possible only if the terms are identical and different. The admission of an identical element in the terms will be tantamount to the admission of a universal. More. over the assertion that similarity is an ultitude concept does not carry conviction. The question of ultimacy can be decided if it is found to preclude the demand of a further explanation or to show such a demand to be unintelligible and absurd. Thus existence is an ultimate concept and no further explanation of its character is possible which does not presuppose the idea of existence in it. But is similarity self-explanatory like existence ? So far as the psychology of our experience and thought is fo to testify, we do not see it to be the case. If a person asserts that A is similar to B, the question naturally arises, "What is the ground of their similarity ?" And the question is set at rest when one can point to a common element existing in both. The Naiyāyika is certainly in the right when he asserts that similarity is a characteristic derived from the possession of a definite common attribute.1 Vimaladása evinces greater insight and love of truth when he agrees with the Naiyāyika in regarding similarity as a derivative characteristic.
The incongruence of the same thing serving as the attribute and as the relation unfortunately did not occur to the Jaina realists of the Post-Dharmakirti period. Relation is at any rate logically posterior to quality. It requires at least two terms to make a relation possible. Similarity, if it be an attribute, must be prior to and hence different from relation. This will be apparent from the consideration that one cannot satisfy the
1. tadbhinnatye sati tadgata bhūyodharmavattvam.