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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
of unity with difference') is as opposed to nirviseșasattvavāda' (the doctrine of differenceless identity) of Sankara, as it is to bhinnābhinnavāda (the doctrine of identity in difference) of Bhāskara, Yādava, Nimbārka, and other bhedābhedavādins'. It is based on the notion of visistaikyam or the complex whole, in contrast with that of svarūpaikyam or absolute identity (of Sankara). A complex whole includes both unity and difference (or diversity) as integral elements
1. This doctrine is also variously described as qualified nondual
ism, pan-organismal monism, qualified monism and so on. Cf., for instance, Rangacharya's Rāmānuja and Vaişnavism, Madras, 1909, p. 34; P. N. Srinivasachari's The Philosophy of Višiştādvaita (to be referred to as Višiştādvaita, hereafter), Madras, 1943, p. 614, IP, Vol. II, p. 661, and EIP, p. 178.
The doctrine is called višiştādvaitam because of its insistence on "The non-duality of two different objects, višiştayor advaitam" (IP, Vol. II, p. 686, f.n.1). Describing the meaning (artha) of the term V. Krishnamacharya writes: "tad evam višiştādvaitam iti padasya eşo'rthaḥ paryavasannah viśiştasya aśeşa-cid-acidviśiştasya brahmaṇaḥ advaitam aikyam viśiştādvaitam iti / aśeșacid-acid-vićişta brahmaikam eva tattvam iti 'ekam eva advitīyam' ityādiśruter arthaḥ / Vedāntakāvali (of Bucci Venkatacarya, ed. V. Krishnamacharya, Madras, 1950), upodghātah, p. X. For the interpretation and elucidation of Rāmānuja's own statement of the meaning: visiştāntarbhāva eva aikyam, see OIP, p. 399, and
f. n.1, and EIP, p. 178. 2. For a polemical exposition of sankara's nirviseşavāda and
Rāmānuja's savićeşavāda, as well as for the refutation of the former and the demonstration of the latter-all based on Rāmānuja's Śrībhāşya-see V. K. Ramanujachari's The Three Tattvas, Kumbhakonam, 1932, Sections III and IV; and the corresponding portions (under "The Great Purvapakşa') in the Vedānta-Sūtras, with Comm. of Rāmānuja, Tr. G. Thibaut, Oxford,
1904, pp. 20 ff. 3. See The Three Tattvas, Sections VIII and IX and The Vedānta
Sūtras, 1. 1.1, pp. 189-197 and 459 f. Contrasting Visiştādvaita with Buddhism (which recognises the concept of viseșaņa, but not of viśeşya) on the one hand, and
