Multidimensional Application of Anekantavada

SR No.: 014009
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sagarmal Jain, Shreeprakash Pandey, Bhagchandra Jain Bhaskar
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 552
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 9 MB

Page 134

A Treatment of Nature of Reality: Anekantaväda
71
While having mutual separation, they exist non-differently in relation to substance and like waves in water they emerge and sink in each other. 59 Thus there is not self-contradiction in dual characters of an entity in relative senses, as the Jainas assert.
Dharmakirti urged with regard to the universal-cum-particular character of reality that this theory compelled one to recognize the curd and camel as one entity. In connection with the fallacious middle term (hetvābhāsa) Akalanka points out that the Buddhist philosophers discover defects to censure the Jainas on the basis of invalid arguments (mithyājāli). For instance, Dharmakirti ignores the formula 'Sarvabhāvastadatas vabhāvar' and tries to establish equality between curd and camel. Hence he questions why one who intends to eat curd, does not go to eat a camel in place of curd, since according to Jail both have the universal character.61
Akalanka tries to disarm critics like Dharmakīrti by pointing out the definition of sämānya and viśeșa. Vādirāja, a commentator on Akalańka, explains that the similar transformation of a thing into its modes (sädrsapariņāminî sămânyam) is called Samanya.2 According to this definition, the modes of curd and camel are not similar. How is it then possible that these elements are mixed ?
Another argument used for the refutation of the Buddhist standpoint is that the identity is only among the modes of curd, as hard, harder, hardest, etc. But they have never any sort of relation with the modes of camel. Hence, they can never be mixed with each other. Vādirāja refers to a traditional fiction that Dharmakirti proved himself as a vidūsaka (jester) because he did not possess a good knowledge of the opponents theory63
Akalanka again criticises the view of Dharmakīrti saying that if the argument that "the atoms of curd and camel may have been mixed sometimes before and the atoms of curd have still the capacity to be transferred into the modes of camel is to be raised, it would not be advisable. For, the past and the future modes of an entity are different, and all transactions and transformations run according to present modes. The curd is for the purpose of eating, while the camel is for riding. The words for them are also completely different from each other. The word