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
of fact it was conceived to be the nature of Brahman alternately to become the manifest world, i. e., to transform itself into the world, and to re-absorb the world into itself. We can, therefore, safely say that pre-śankara Vedānta was not a vivartavāda with its inevitable two-plane reality--the one real and the other phenomenal—but a kind of evolutionary monism (ekatvavāda) or brahmapariņāmavāda admitting, not altogether unconsciously, the dual reality of the transforming ultimate and its transformed manifestation of the world.
While Vedic-Upanişadic monism admitted of duality or difference and, therefore, characterised it (difference) in relatively positive terms, sānkara Advaitism, employing a negativistic method, perhaps under the influence of the Mādhyamika dialectic, attempted firmly to reject it. Consequently the former conceived brahman as the basic reality
svagata, or the difference which exists between the parts within a single body. The following stanza from Pañcadaśī (20) illustrates these forms :
vşkşasya svagato bhedaḥ patrapușpaphalādibhiḥ /
vşkşāntarāt sajātiyo vijātīyaḥ sitäditaḥ // 1. Cf. dve satye samupas?tya buddhānär dharmadeśană /
lokasamortisatyam ca satyaṁ ca paramārthataḥ // ye 'nayorna vijānanti vibhāgam satyayordvayoḥ /
te tattvam na vijānanti gambhīram buddhaśāsane // Madhyamika Sūtra, XXIV. 8 f. See also Sukthankar's remarks in this connection, in the journal already referred to: supra
p. 17, f.n. 2. 2. In framing his celebrated four-fold (catuskoţi) dialectic
the Madhyamika is guided by the principle that every view (diţti) is self-contradictory and is, therefore, self-convicted. The four moments of the dialectic are sat ('is'), asat ("is not'), sadasat (both 'is' and 'is not') and na sat naiväsat (neither 'is' nor'is not'). Assertion of any of these possibilities necessarily, implies, according to him, its opposite counterpart and, thereby