________________
21
partioularity of a thing of experience; they forget on the one hand that a thing of experience is not so much particular as a generality-in-4particular-mode and on the other, the environmental circumstances provide ways for limiting the conceptional character of words. Accordingly, the Buddhist theory about the inoa pability of words to express a thing is praotically an instance of going to the absurd extreme.
It is thus that the objectors' contentions in all the above discussions were correct to a certain extent and were wrong only because they were unreasonably one-sided, clinging obstinately, as they did, to a particular aspect of the thing under consideration. Valid knowledge consists in a comprehensive view of it. Let us revert to our example of the fruit-bearing mango-tree. When in front of the tree one may make any of the following statements:
(a) Regard being had to the fact that all experience and all phenomena are absolutely unsubstantial, there is the void (Sūnya ).
(b) There is an idea, for the moment being of a fruit-bearing mango-tree.
(0) There is an idea, for the moment being,
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
