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
anirvacanīya'. Being neither sat nor asat it is further suggested to be midway between the two, a 'twilight', a 'real-unreal', or a 'true lie's It evidently indicates a 'third position' which aims at doing away with the contradiction with which sat and asat are supposed to be riddled.
But one doubts if this explanation offered in the form of a 'third position' is a real solution at all to the problem. It looks like an evasive device which, when shorn of its dialectical embellishments, harbours the very contradiction which it aims at banishing from its scheme. It is not, therefore, surprising if this position invokes against itself the charge which Kumārila makes in a similar context: he affirms that "that which does not exist, does not exist; and that which really exists is real, while all else is unreal; and, therefore, there can be no assumption of two kinds of reality".
1. That is, anirvacanīya is that which cannot be said to be either
is' or is not': sadasadbhyām anirvacanīyam / Ibid., p. 2 (text) and Notes, p. 24. Also :
pratyekaṁ sadasattvābhyam vicāra-padavim na yad /
gāhate tad anirvacanīyam ahur vedānta-vedinah // See HIP, Vol. II, p. 155, f.n. 2 (quoted from Citsukhi). This aspect of anirvacanīya will, again, be dealt with in its relation
to the Jaina notion of avaktavya, in the ch. on Syadvāda. 2. Referring to the middle category' of sadasadvilaksana, A.
Bhattacharya writes in his Studies in Post-Sankara Dialectics (Univ. of Calcutta, 1936), p. 240: "It is a new category which shares in the characteristics of both position and negation and therefore a middle category between the two, positivenegative in its character.” The words quoted in this and the next sentences are from Aspects of Advaita (by P. N. Srinivasachari, Madras, 1949), p. 41.
tasmadyannästi nästyeva yattvasti paramarthataḥ / tatsatyam anyanmithyeti na satyadvayakalpana //
MSV, Nirälambavāda, kā. 10, E. T., S. V. Jha, p. 120.