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The Jaina Antiquary
[Vol. XIV
Nitya and Anitya. In fact, that is the nature of reality as under. stood by Jaina thinkers.
Review:
Every object of reality implies a difference with an underlying identity, a change associated with a permanency, a unity associated with multiplicity. It is because of the structure of reality that it is possible for us to describe it by contradictory attributes, Asti and Nästi, Nitya and Anitya, Bheda and Abeda and so on. This fundamental metaphysical doctrine which is the central idea of Jaina thought differenciates this system of philosophy from other schools of thought, Indian or European. No Indian school of thought has accepted this doctrine. Every Indian school takes up one particular point of view of reality and asserts it to the exclusion of other aspects. Vedantism, for example, emphasises the permanent sub stratum of reality, of the permanent substance, the Brahma. It is always one unchanging Nitya At the opposite pole of thought you have the Buddhistic Kshanika Vada which emphasises the momentary nature of reality and is blind to the underlying permanent sub stratum. To the Buddhistic thinker every object of reality is Anitya, momentary. It appears and disappears the very next moment. There is no such thing as Nitya or permanent sub-stratum either in the outer world of nature or in the inner world of consciousness. This kind of one-sided emphasis to the exclusion of the other aspect of reality is described by Jaina thinkers as Ekanta Väda, one sided assertion, while they claim their metaphysics to be a Anekanta Vāda viewing reality from all its aspects. Thus, the Astinasti Vada with which we began is the natural corrolary of the nature of reality which is many sided and hence could be described accurately and completely only by taking into conside ration all its aspects or technically by Anekanta logic. Forgetting this aspect of reality and attempting to describe the nature of reality piecemeal would end in a similar confusion as the description of an elephant by the various blind men each describing the animal from his own point of contact and thus making a ridiculous mess of reality.
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Conclusion:
In short, a complex nature of reality must be the necessary
