________________
INTRODUCTION
The Axioms of Non-absolutism*
ACHARYA MAHAPRAJNA
The Concomitance between the Universal and the Particular We can know the truth and also express it. It consists in the trio of entity, word and knowledge. Different philosophies have looked at the problem from different angles of vision. The Vedānta has explained the problem from three standpoints--the ultimate, the empirical and the apparent. The Brahman is the ultimate truth, while the sensuous world has only empirical validity. The cognition of the 'will-o' the wisp and dream is pure appearance. In Hinavana Buddhism the truth is twofold. viz. the ultimate and the conventional, while in the idealist Buddhism it is threefold, viz. the ultimate (parinispanna), the dependent (paratantra) and the imaginary (parikalpita). The self-nature (momentariness) of the object is the ultimate truth. The universal nature is only a conventional truth on account of its being a product of the intellectual function of exclusion.
Different thinkers have presented the different aspects of truth in their own way. The foundation-stone of such presentation is twofold-intuitive experience and rational knowledge. In intuitive experience the object is known directly and, therefore, there is no difference in such experience. The rational knowledge that occurs at
* New Dimensions in Jaina Logic. Today and Tomorrow's Printers and Publishers,
New Delhi, 1984. 1. Pramanavärttika, 2.4.
arthakriyāsamartham yat, tadatra paramārthasat/ anyat samvítisat proktam, te svasamányalaksaņell
