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 214

CHAPTER VI
195
identity-in-difference offers an adequate definition of reality.' The present question, the last in the series of four questions with which we started a critical exposition of the Jaina conception of reality, aims at dealing briefly with how and why the Jaina regards every real as not merely an indissoluble (parasparānanuviddha) union of identity-in-difference but also--this is the matter of immediate concern-as something sui generis (jātyantara).
The Jaina ontologist maintains that a real is a synthesis of identity-in-difference and that each such synthesis is jātyantara or sui generis. That is, the combination of identity and difference in a real is not a numerical summation but a vital synthesis of the two elements. Each such synthesis is also said to be unique, in the sense that when the real is analysed the two elements of identity and difference exhaust
1. yata evotpădăditrayātmakam paramārthasat / TRD, p. 229 2. Cf. “A real is a unity and diversity in one, and the
relation involved is neither one of absolute identity nor one of absolute otherness, but something different from both. It is
sui generis... ..." JPN, p. 207. 3. Cf. evam hyubhayadoşādidoşā api na dūşaņam / samyagjātyantaratvena bhedabhedaprasiddhitan //
AJP, Vol. I, p. 72. Akalanka also remarks : ubhayadosa(viz., sadasadekāntapakşadosa)prasanga iti cet na jātyantaratvān narasimharūpavati TRAG, p. 225. Through expressing himself not merely against the view that a real is 'ubhayarūpa' (composite) but also against the other two extreme dogmas, viz., that a real is merely 'dravyarūpa' and that it (the real) is merely paryāyarūpa’, Hemacandra also asserts the manifold (sabala) and unique (jātyantara) character of the real as follows: ayam arthaḥ-na dravyarūpan na paryāyarūpań nobhayarūpam vastu, yena tattatpakşabhāvī dosah syāt, kintu sthityutpādavyayatmakam sabalam jātyantarameva vastu / PMHS, p. 29.