Comparative Study Of Jaina Theories Of Reality And Knowledge

SR No.: 022768
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Y J Padmarajaiah
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal
Publication Year: 1963
Total Pages: 446
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 35 MB

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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
positive in the entity), and, consequently, of treating abhāva as the entire content of the entity. When abhāva or negation becomes the sole content of the entity, the entity disappears without a trace. Like his opponents the anekāntavādin is well aware of the fact that predicating two opposing characters of the same aspect of an entity is of course a contradiction : tenaiva svabhāvena sac căsacceti viruddham etat. This contradiction is, as will be shown in the sequel, as objectionable to the Jaina as it is to his opponents. But what the opponents have persistently missed observing here is that the so-called 'opposing characters' refer to the two different aspects of an entity and, consequently, become necessary and complementary components of it.
This negation, as observed in the concrete setting of the anekānta ontology, is an essential or organic element in the constitution of an entity, which is an intrinsic-extrinsic complex. It is not a vacuum subsisting alongside an unconnected positive existent in a compartmental entity. It is an almost axiomatic belief, on the part of the anekānta vādin, that nature, or reality, abhors vacuum. He maintains, therefore, that negation comprises manifold traits collectively
1. AJP, Vol. I, p. 44. 2. This repudiation of the attempt falsely to identify bhava with
abhāva contains within itself also the implicit condemnation of the converse attempt to identify abhāva with bhāva. There is, however, an interesting point which supplements the general trend of the repudiation: abhāva, if identified with bhāva becomes indistinguishable from the latter and, consequently the entity in question-or, for that matter the entire reality in general-becomes an indifferenced or negationless existence which is evidently fictitious.