Jaina Theories of Reality and Knowledge

SR No.: 001608
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Y J Padmarajiah
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal
Publication Year: 1963
Total Pages: 444
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Epistemology, & Anekantvad
File Size: 23 MB

Page 114

CHAPTER III
95 diverse-can, as it has been repeatedly pointed out, result in a justly comprehensive scheme of reality in which the principle of difference, and all that it implies, can enjoy an intrinsically real and co-ordinate status. Despite its professions to the contrary, Rāmānuja's Visiştādvaitism must be counted among such systems, for it holds that brahman is the supreme reality and cit and acit are, despite their supposedly distinctive status' of existence, real only in so far as they derive their reality from brahman. Under this scheme the course of reality becomes a one-way traffic--that is, one in which reality flows only from the infinite absolute to the so-called real and finite world and the selves—but not a genuinely comprehensive synthesis resulting from an interaction of the independent, but complimentary, elements of identity and difference.
Thus there can be little doubt that in Rāmānuja's philosophy, identity, represented by brahman, is, as shown in the present account, the primary principle; and difference, represented by the modal elements of cit and acit, is the secondary principle having brahman for its source and
1. That brahman is, strictly speaking (vastutastu), the only real
principle (ekameva), in višiştādvaita as in the other schools of Vedānta (vedāntānām) in the opinion of Śrīnivāsa : vastutastu vedāntānām cidacidviśiştam advaitam ekameva brahmeti tātparyam/ ata eva cidacidviśiştan brahmaikam iti upakramya tameva prakāram nirūpitavān/atah cidacidviśisto.... nārāyana evaikam tattvam iti visiştädvaitavādinām darśanam iti siddham // srinivasa's Yatindramatadīpikā, p. 47; see also p. 39, and cf. evaṁ sarvavasthāvasthitacidacidvastuśarīratayā tatprakāraḥ paramapuruşa eva kāryāvasthakāraṇāvasthajagadrūpeṇa avasthita iti..../ śribhäşya (S. Abhyankar's edn., text, p. 119). See also Vedāntasara, pp. 8-9.