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 135

116 JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE passes the verdict of a 'weak' defence on a great Mādhva dialectician who does not seem materially to add to the argument for difference just noticed.
The exponents of Dvaitism credit the notion of difference, as seen above, with such fundamental and comprehensive significance that we are apt to understand the system as one of uncompromising difference. It is indeed not uncommon that this system is described as suddhabhedavāda. In his crusading zeal for bheda Madhva interprets the celebrated texts' in such a manner that they are made to yield a bheda view of reality. Ātma tat tvam asi (soul! 'that art thou '), for instance, is construed as ātma atat tvam 'asi“ (soul! thou are not that) and thereby difference, not identity, is elicited
ini
1. For (a) the five-fold distinction (pañcabheda) of višeşa, as
well as for (b) how višeșa is svābhāvika or real, not aupādhika or conditional or fictitious, see (a) SDSC, p. 94; Helmuth von Glasenapp's Madhva's Philosophie des Vişnu-Glaubens, pp. 14-15, especially p. 15, f.n. 1 (where the relevant lines from Anuvyakhyāna and reference to other works are cited) and RRS, pp. 598, and 139, f.n. 4; and (b) RRS, pp. 135, 228 and 427. See The Brahmavadin (Madras, 1900), Vol. VI, p. 233. Adverting to Madhva's attitude in interpreting the Brahmasūtras, Ghate observes that "the very fantastic and forced manner in which he (Madhva) interprets many of the sutras leaves no doubt about the fact that he would have set aside the sutras altogether, but that their uncontested authori. tativeness prevented him from doing so". V. S. Ghate's The
Vedānta, Poona, 1926, p. 33. 4. See SDSC, p. 97, and RRS, p. 601 ff., especially p. 601, f.n. 22,
and p. 604. See also pp. 212-215, 263 f., 278, 321 and 680. Gauda-pürnānanda-chakravartin, however, suggests a somewhat different interpretation of this text. He interprets it as “thou art not Its" (tasya tvam asi). See The TattvaMuktāvali, JRAS, New Series, Vol. XV, p. 139 (text), verse 6, and p. 155, E. T. by E. B. Cowell and f.n. 4.