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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
or rather, the even more non-committal attitude of "agnosticism”. He writes : "As is well-known, this theory denies the possibility of any predication : S may be, or may not be, or may both be and not be, P. With such a purely negative or agnostic attitude one cannot have any dogma; and Sankarācārya lays his finger accurately on the weakest point in the system when he says. As thus the means of knowledge, the knowing subject, and the act of knowledge, are all alike, indefinite, how can the Tirthankara (Jaina) teach with any claim to authority, and how can his followers act on a doctrine the matter of which is altogether indeterminate?'"
Besides this charge of agnosticism Belvalkar manages to raise a fresh issue which, however, he links up with agnosticism. He remarks that "the dialectic (of syādváda) could not have sprung up from the same teacher or one and the same philosophical background".' This means that, according to him, syādvāda is incompatible with, or at any rate, does not naturally emerge from, the Jaina philosophy of identityin-difference. Connecting this issue with his favourite charge of agnosticism he writes in his notes on Brahmasūtrabhāşya, "Sankarācārya, no less than the Sūtrakara,.... succeeds in proving that, as a mere ‘anaikāntika' (sic) theory of predication, the Syādvāda must return upon itself and end in doubting the doubter himself".: Rao strengthens him by placing in his hands a further weapon in the form of charging syādvāda with “self-contradiction". To quote Rao's own
1. Ibid., p. 32. 2. Ibid. 3. BBSB, p. 181 (Notes).
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