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CHAPTER I
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schools also will have to be treated severally for two important reasons, viz., (a) that in common with the Vedāntin and the Buddhist, they (e. g., Visiştādvaita of Rāmānuja or Dvaita of Madhva) impute the charge of self-contradiction against Jainism ; and (b) that they also afford rich material for a fruitful comparative study of the problem.
In surveying the field of Indian philosophy from the point of view of the problem of the nature of reality we may adopt, as our guiding principle, the following five-fold classification which includes, within its scope, the different schools of philosophical thought in terms of their adherence to “identity" alone, or to "difference” alone, or to both in unequal or equal proportions. The five types of philosophy embodied in this classification are intended to include almost any school, whether or not specifically to be mentioned in the course of our comparative study, in so far as such a school comes within the purview of our inquiry into the nature of reality.
1. The Philosophy of Being or Identity. 2. The Philosophy of Becoming (Change) or Difference.
The Sānkhya, for instance, postulates the ultimate principles of prakrti and puruşa and yet swings, in the ultimate analysis, to the side of the Vedāntin by virtue of his predominant emphasis on identity as a satkāryavādin. Conversely, the logical end of the Vaišeşika's exclusive emphasis on the postulate of višeşa or particularity leads him to import ab extra the element of samavāya (the necessary relation, see Ch. VII), the untenability of which (the samavāya) is proved by the tremendous polemical storm that has been raised, in Indian Logic, over it. Vide the sections on the Sānkhya and the Vaišesika in the sequel.
