First Steps to Jainism Part 1

SR No.: 001640
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sancheti Asso Lal, Manakmal Bhandari
Publisher: Sancheti Trust Jodhpur
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 300
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Education
File Size: 10 MB

Page 295

Anekanta 151
combining the fourth with the first three in their proper context. Here the dialectic of sevenfold predication (saptabhangr) has been clearly defined by Samantabhadra by assigning the fourth position to the attribute of 'inexpressibility' instead of the third assigned to it in the Bhagavati Sutra and also by Sidhasena. The Aptamimāmsā now explains the saptabhang of 'existence' and 'nonexistence' (verse 17-20). 'Existence' is necessarily concomitant, in the self same entity with its opposite viz. non-existence, being its adjunct (visesana counterpart), even as homogeneity is necessarily concomitant with heterogeneity (intention to assert difference); similarly, 'nonexistence' is necessarily concomitant, in the selfsame entity, with its opposite (viz. existence); being its adjunct (visesana, counterpart), even as heterogeneity is con-comitant with homogeneity (intention to assert identity):
astitvam pratisedhyenāvinābhāvyekadharimni visesanatvat sadharmyam yathā bhedavivaksaya nāstitvam pratisedhyenāvinabhāvyekadharmini. viseanatvād vaidharmyam yathā bhedavivaksaya
An entity is moreover of the nature of positum as well as negatum (vidheya-pratisedhyātmā), exactly as the same attribute of the subject (minor term) of an inference may be a valid as well as an invalid probans in accordance with the nature of the probandum to be proved by it. This is the third bhanga of the Saptabhangi of 'existence' and 'nonexistence'. The remaining four bhangas are also to be understood in their proper perspectives. Samantabhadra now explains the nature of a real in the light of this anekānta dialectic. The real must be an entity which is not determined by any exclusive property or any absolute character. Only that which is undefined by a positive. or a negative attribute exclusively is capable of exercising the causal efficiency which is the sole criterion of reality (verse 21 : evam vidhi-nisedhābhyām anavasthitam arthakrt). The Buddist fluxist as well as the Vedantic monist are jointly criticized here as upholding ontological views, which, being truncated and partial, fail to explain the real in its comprehensivenes. Neither an absolutely static, nor a radically dynamic object is capable of exercising the causal efficiency in spite of all other conditions, external and internal, being fulfilled. Samantabhadra (verse 22) applies the anekānta dialectic in constructing the real as a totality of infinite number of attributes (dharmas), each of which represents the whole