Aptamimansa Critique of an Authority Bhasya

Author(s): Samantbhadracharya, Akalankadev, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Jagruti Dilip Sheth Dr

Page 56

21
EXISTENCE AND NON-EXISTENCE *being', 'nonbeing', 'both being and nonbeing', 'indescribable”. Thus we are told that the Jaina seeks to understand an empirical phenomenon in terms of its four coordinates, viz. its form, its root-substance, its place of occurrence, its time of occurrence. Here the concept 'root-substance' needs a special clarification and as follows. According to the Jaina the world of root-substances is divided into two broad groups, viz. (i) numerous physical atoms which are not further divisible but which can combine to form bigger composite bodies, and (ii) numerous individual souls which are neither further divisible nor capable of combining to form bigger composite units. (For the sake of convenience the composite physical bodies might be called 'composite substances' to be contradistinguished from atoms that are being called 'root-substances (of the physical type)'. In theory, every particular empirical phenomenon is describable as a particular conglomeration of certain root-substances each of which is found to manifest a particular form at a particular place and a particular time; but in practice it is described as a particular composite substance found to manifest a particular form at a particular place and a particular time. This explains why the distinction between a root-substance and a composite substance is often obliterated in practice, but it has to be kept in mind in the interest of theoretical clarification.] Now Samantabhadra tells us that an empirical phenomenon is describable as 'being' insofar as it is of the nature of a particular root-substance manifesting a particular form at a particular place and a particular time, while the same is describable as ‘nonbeing' insofar as it is not of the nature of another particular rootsubstance, or of a root-substance manifesting another particular form, or of one manifesting a form at another particular place, or of one manifesting a form at another particular time. This statement is most crucial for a correct estimate of the Jaina position on the question; for it makes it crystal-clear that the Jaina does not describe a phenomenon as 'being' in exactly the same respect in which he describes it as 'nonbeing'. A minor - though in some sense quite crucial - point of clarification has been supplied in the form of the distinction drawn between the character called 'both being and nonbeing' and the one called 'indescribable (=not both being and nonbeing)'. Thus the Jaina will describe a phenomenon as 'indescribable' only in the sense that it is impossible to simultaneousely describe it as both 'being' and 'nonbeing'; on the bcing and nonbeing in the sense that it is possible to describe it first as being' and then as 'nonbcing'. Lastly, Samantabhadra tells us that the Jaina will describe an empirical phenomenon not only as 'being', 'nonbeing',