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
the dual character of difference and non-difference or identity (bhedābheda or bhinnābhinna). The evolution is a real transformation of the unitary brahman into the manifold world and the finite selves. This position, like that of Bhartsprapañca, is in sharp contrast with the vivartavāda according to which the world is a 'cosmic fiction'or a phenomenal appearance (māyā) occurring owing to ignorance (avidyā)' which is sublated when true knowledge (jñāna) ? reveals itself. A further important divergence on the part of this position from that of the latter doctrine concerns causal relation: While the two thinkers under study treat the world as a finite, but real, manifestation, or effect, of the infinite ultimate (brahman)" the vivartavādin repudiates the intrinsic reality of any causal relation between the world and the ultimate principle. This is so because, in the bhedābheda view of the former, the effects, say, the jar, the pot and the platter etc., are
1. For the distinction, in meaning, between māyā as 'the principle
of cosmic illusion' (or cosmic fiction') and avidyā (ignorance) as the 'incidence', of māyā, on the individual, see OIP, p. 348,
f.n. 1 and p. 365 f. 2. Evidently this doctrine strikes Bhāskara as propounding the
view that the world (which is infected with bheda) is epistemic' in its being (prātītikasattā), or that it exists for the individual (puruşāpekṣayā) in ignorance. Bhāskara sharply attacks this view and (cf. narashedān na hi jñeyā vastunah sada satyatā/ na hi rūpam anandhānāṁ satyam andhesvasad bhavet/ Brahmasutra with the Comm. of Bhāskarācārya, ed. Vir ovari Prasada Dvivedin, Benares, 1903, p. 18) and affirms that our experience of bheda is not phenomenal but real (tasmān na
bhedadarśanam avidyā/ Ibid., p. 19). 3. See the somewhat lengthy but highly lucid comm. on II, 1.14.
Bhāskaräcārya, op. cit., p. 9288. 4. See below f.n.