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 146

CHAPTER V
127
of being is : "The real is characterised by birth or origination, death or destruction, and sameness or continuity (utpāda-vyaya-dhrauvya-yuktam sat)." Everything real must have, according to the postulate embodied in this text of Umāsvāti, the triple character of productivity (utpāda), destructibility (vyaya), and, at the same time, permanence or persistence (dhrauvya) underlying it. Conversely whatever lacks the one or the other of this triple nature is a mental abstraction having no title to reality. Productivity and destructibility constitute the two aspects of change and may, therefore, be together characterised as the dynamic aspect of reality, the static aspect being represented by permanence or dhruvatva’. That is, utpada and vyaya, being the two facets of the process of change, will be treated together, throughout this work, under the comprehensive single principle of change;
1. TSUJ, V. 30. 2. On being asked by Indrabhūti, his foremost apostle
(ganadhara): “What is the nature of reality ?" (kim tattam) Mahāvira is reported to have first answered : "origination" (uppaņņež vă) and then, after the same question was successively repeated, "destruction” (vigameï vā), and "persistence" (dhuveï và). Cf. A. R. Kapadia's The Canonical Literature of the Jainas, 1941, Bombay, p. 3, and the extract from Haribhadra Sūri's Comm. on Avassaya and its Nijjutti in f.n. 4 thereon.
Modification; becoming; difference; discreetness; plurality; manyness; manifoldness; the occurrent; and dynamism-are some of the epithets generally used in varying contexts, as synonyms for change (bheda or paryāya) which have, in Jaina metaphysics, the constituents of productivity (utpada or utpatti) and destructibility (vināśa or vyava). Similarly, substantiality: substratum; being; identity; non-difference; continuity; continuance; unity; oneness; the continuant; statism, as well as endurance and persistence, are used for permanence (dhruvatva, dhrauvya or anvaya). Besides being a correlative to "becoming" the term “being” could also be