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
the dual character of difference and non-difference or identity (bhedābheda or bhinnābhinna). The evolution is a real transformation of the unitary brahman into the manifold world and the finite selves. This position, like that of Bhartsprapañca, is in sharp contrast with the vivartavāda according to which the world is a 'cosmic fiction' or a phenomenal appearance (māyā) occurring owing to ignorance (avidyā)' which is sublated when true knowledge (jñāna)? reveals itself. A further important divergence on the part of this position from that of the latter doctrine concerns causal relation: While the two thinkers under study treat the world as a finite, but real, manifestation, or effect, of the infinite ultimate (brahman)' the vivartavādin repudiates the intrinsic reality of any causal relation between the world and the ultimate principle. This is so because, in the bhedābheda view of the former, the effects, say, the jar, the pot and the platter etc., are
1. For the distinction, in meaning, between māyā as the principle
of cosmic illusion' (or cosmic fiction') and avidyā (ignorance) as the 'incidence', of māyā, on the individual, see OIP, p. 348, f.n. 1 and p. 365 f. Evidently this doctrine strikes Bhāskara as propounding the view that the world (which is infected with bheda) is 'epistemic' in its being (prätītikasattā), or that it exists for the individual (puruşāpekṣayā) in ignorance. Bhāskara sharply attacks this view and (cf. naraðhedān na hi jñeyā vastunah sadasatyatā/ na hi rūpam anandhānāṁ satyam andheşvasad bhavet/ Brahmasūtra with the Comm. of Bhāskarācārya, ed. Vindhyesvari Prasada Dvivedin, Benares, 1903, p. 18) and affirms that our experience of bheda is not phenomenal but real (tasman na
bhedadarśanam avidyā/ Ibid., p. 19). 3. See the somewhat lengthy but highly lucid comm. on II. 1.14.
Bhāskarācārya, op. cit., p. 9288. 4. See below f.n.