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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
dharmāś ca padārtha nikhila amī'); or that "It (difference) lurks in everything" (so’sti vastușvašeşataḥ”). Such statements are stated to express the "general metaphysical position" of Dvaitism. This is a position in which "The Cartesian Cogito should be considerably amended, if not completely altered. What does Descartes say? 'I thinktherefore, I am.' Madhva would alter it to 'I differtherefore, I am.' It is thus a position in which "Existence means difference, and difference means existence—though not literally."
If the statement that "Existence means difference and difference means existence..." and perhaps similar other statements (e. g., that “Difference is....the very stuff of the cosmos" etc.), which declare the identity of existence and 'stuff', are not to be taken 'literally', it is difficult to see how Madhva and his followers treat viseșa as an ontological principle at all. As a matter of fact Dvaitins, like the Vaiseșikas, speak of an infinity of viseșas, corresponding to the infinite diversity of the nature of an entity within itself, as well as to the infinite range of entities in the universe, from which a particular entity is differentiated. It is doubtful whether what is considered as the 'nature' or the 'power' of an entity can be treated as the entity itself. It sounds somewhat illogical that a 'power' is considered to
1. EIP, p. 187, and p. 210, note 9. 2. RRS, p. 298. 3. Cf. EIP, p. 187. 4. RRS, p. 298 f.
See IP, Vol. II, p. 746, and Jayatirtha's Vadāvali (Adyar, 1943), Notes, p. 203.
