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

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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
Jitāri, another great Buddhist logician, adds his powerful voice to the attack in his Anekāntavāda-Nirāsaḥ.' The gist of his rather lengthy, but closely argued, polemic' against the anekāntavādin's theory of identity-in-difference may be stated as follows: When the anekāntavādin maintains that dravya and paryāya are identical, owing to the identity of their nature, it means that he affirms nothing short of their total identity (ekarūpataiva). Difference, based on (the
by the following criticism : Therefore, it must be admitted that either there is destruction of all, or that all is permanent: exclusiveness (vyāvrtti) and inclusiveness anugama) cannot subsist in any single entity. (tato niranvayo dhvarsaḥ sthirań vā sarvamisyatām/ ekātmani tu naiva sto vyāvstyanugamāvimau/l). The spirit of this criticism is that either the substance (identity, dravya, or anugama) perishes with the everperishing states (paryāyas, difference or vyāvrtti), or the everpersisting states become imperishable like the substance which supports them. This criticism is, of course, made against the Jaina theory of the real as a combination of the unity of a substance with the diversity of the states. It implies that the only two possibilities logically warranted by the Jaina position are either that substance should be pluralised like the inherent states, or the states should be integrated into a unity, the co-existence of unity and plurality being, according to the Buddhist, logically absurd. The adoption of either course knocks the bottom out of the Jaina metaphysics, driving it into the arms of either the eternalist Vedāntin or the fluxist
Bauddha. 1. Printed as the last section in the Tarkabhāsā and Vädasthāna
of Mokşākaragupta and Jitāripāda, edited by H. R. Ranga
swami Iyengar, Mysore, 1944. 2. Its length forbids its full citation here. The gist of the
argument stated above, however, gives the main issue raised. The whole account in the text is but an amplification of the issue and refers to the several finer shades of the argument. The issue is dealt with, in considerable detail, in the sequel from the Jaina point of view. See infra, Ch. V.