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THE SIDDHANTA.
703
and continuation at one and the same time. Of these, the first two appertain to form without which no substance can ever be found to exist in nature, and the last is the characteristic of the material aspect of substances, For instance, in a gold ring there is origination of ringness and destruction of the previous form---bar-ness, lump-ness, and the like--accompanied by the continuation of gold as a substance throughout, that is both when existing in the form of a bar, or lump, as well as in that of the ring
It is true that not being a true substance but only a form of matter, gold itself is subject to origination and destruction ; but it is inconceivable how without the continuity of the ultimate substance,-matter,-goldness, bar-ness or ringness could have inhered, originated or disappeared in pure nothing. We must, therefore, concede that pure becoming, or change, is utterly inadequate and insufficient as a cause of the world-process.
The Jaina View of the nature of reality (substance) is well described by Mr. V.R. Gandhi, who, speaking at a meeting of the East India Association (London), on May the 21st 1900, observed :--
“Noumenon and phenomenon are not two separate existences, but only two modes of our looking upon the full contents of a thing, part of which is known and part unknown to us now. The fallacy in the popular mind in reference to these terms is that of confounding logical distinction with an actual separation. In the Buddhist view nothing is permanent. Transitoriness is the only reality. As professor Oldenberg says: The speculation of the Brahmans apprehended being in all being, that of the Buddhists becoming in all apparent being
“The Jainas, on the contrary, consider being and becoming as two different and complementary ways of our viewing the same thing.
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