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CHAPTER VIII
A Consideration of Two Controversies Concerning Dravya (Substance) and Guna (and/or Paryāya) with a View to Clarifying the Nature of Both
Our investigation so far has led us to the conclusion that reality is a co-ordinate synthesis of identity-in-difference and that every real accordingly is a unique embodiment of identity-in-differents. There are, however, two controversies which further elucidate the nature of dravya and of paryāyas in the anekānta ontology. One of them owes its genesis to an impact of recent Western philosophy (Hegelianism and neoHegelianism) on Indian thought and is, therefore, modern, and the other is a natural development arising from an impulse to obviate an inherent inconsistency and dates back, at any rate in its more conscious form, to the times of Siddhasena Divākara. These controversial problems are : A. whether a dravya could be described as a concrete universal, and B. whether the paryāyas are the same as, or different from, the guņas, in a dravya. They deserve at least a brief notice and, therefore, an attempt may be made to consider their salient features.
A. How far could a Dravya be treated as a Concrete
Universal? In a fit of Hegelian enthusiasm, two critics, Nahar and Ghosh, have attempted to find in the Jaina notion of dravya
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