Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

SR No.: 001595
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh
Publication Year: 1976
Total Pages: 236
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Discourse, & Articles
File Size: 13 MB

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Mahavira and His Relevance
substantive individuals. And if the individual be regarded as an enduring and abiding entity persisting through the past, present and future, it amounts to the assertion of a universal in another way. The past is defunct and the future is unborn. And if experience be the proof of the existence of a thing, the past and future existence of a fact must be rejected as the real traits of the individuals. What we perceive is the present and so it is the present that can be real. Furthermore, the past has no casual efficiency and so also the future. The real tree does not serve any purpose or give any advantage or disadvantage. So logical consistency demands that we should regard only that as real which is existent in the present moment. This line of approach has been pursued by the Buddhist Fluxist who declares all reals to be momentary in duration.
This approach has been called Ṛjusūtranaya, that is, the approach which gives the straight and direct glimpse of the thing. The present is the real character of the individual. The past and future determinations are as alien to it as the character of other entities. It, of course, does not consider the differences of name or of gender and number thereof as the determination of the real individual. And so these differences of expression do not affect the individuality of the thing.
The advocate of the next Naya goes one step further in the process of particularization. He agrees with the advocate of the previous approach in the assertion that the present alone is real. But as the real is expressed and characterized by work and words are significant and not unmeaning symbols, the real must be understood in the light of the connotation of the term that stands for it. Each term designates an action, being derived from a verbal root, and it is this action which stamps the fact meant with its distinctive character. And so the word 'Ghata' (a jar) which is derived from the Ghata 'to exert' stands for the thing which is capable of action viz. drawing water etc. This is the case with all words. The king is one who is possessed of sovereign power. If a man is called by the name 'king,' it has not the meaning of the word 'king.' Similarly the portrait or the statue of a man is loosely identified with the man. The heir apparent to the throne is addressed by the Sycophants 'Your Majesty'. These are all unmeaning expressions because they do not possess the function which the word connotes. Of course this constitutes the difference of the Naya from the previous one.