Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

SR No.: 002012
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1996
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Nyay
File Size: 23 MB

Page 161

144 Anekāntavāda and Syädvāda
which individually touch every aspect, and, together, all the aspects, of a situation in a systematic way has been borne in upon us, in some measure, in the course of the present chapter. A certain actuality, like the jar, an example with which the modes have been illustrated, is looked at from the possible seven angles and the deliverance of these modal judgments does represent a synthesis which is neither ‘loose' nor unsystematic. Unfortunately no non-absolutistic system can provide the sort of idealistic synthesis' which can satisfy the deepest metaphysical and religious aspirations of mankind''. Under the absolutistic prescription a proper synthesis can proceed from the sole real, viz., the absolute. But one fails to understand where the need for a 'synthesis' arises in the case of a secondless absolute. A
synthesis' of any description is possible when there are more alternatives, loose or firm, than one. If it is so, it is impossible to understand the protests of the absolutists against any lack of synthesis when no synthesis at all is possible with a unitary absolute. By 'synthesis', therefore, the absolutist critics mean an obliteration of alternative truths in favour of the one asserted by the fourth mode in syadvāda. It is not a mere 'prejudice against absolutism 198 but a deep difference in the approach of philosophical analysis that prevents syādvādin from throwing in his lot with a despotic absolute which brcoks no rivalry from coexistent truths and, therefore, should raise no issue of synthesis. It is the love of a superficial reconciliation that lies at the back of the claim that syādvāda is a “halfway house to absolutism". Thus the synthesis achieved by syādvāda is one of discriminative unity rather than of a secondless unit which cannot be approached either by synthesis or by analysis. The conception of a unitary absolute has been, no doubt, a constant lure for mysticism and poetry. But the sphere of reality is often less lofty and very much less ethereal. Absolutism escapes from the harrowing problems of existence under the master excuse of the absolute. But it is through a tortuous process of analysis and synthesis that the secrets of elusive
198. Ascribing this 'prejudice to the syādvādin has elicited a counter-charge of a
speculative bias' from a critic in rather strong terms: "...And it would be the height of sacrilege to the system of Jaina speculation to attempt an unnecessary twisting of facts, to impose an absolute or monist interpretation on their conception of truth and reality, as has been done in some quarters, on the plea of pseudo-simplicity, or perhaps owing to speculative bias''. Narimohana Bhattacharya's paper on "The Jaina Conception of Truth and Reality" (Proceedings of the First Indian Philosophical Congress, 1925, Calcutta University, Calcutta, 1927), p. 165.