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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
ontology postulates a reality which is immensely complex or manifold. Correspondingly, the anekanta epistemology postulates a theory of manifold methods of analysis (nayavada) and synthesis (syädvāda) by means of which the complex reality can be apprehended by the mind. Besides these methods the anekanta epistemology postulates what is generally described as a theory of the ways of knowing (pramāņas). The ways of knowing are broadly classified by the Jaina thinkers into two categories, viz., pratyakṣapramāna and parokṣapramāņa. The former is the direct or immediate way of knowing and the latter is the indirect or mediate way of knowing. Each category is subdivided into further stages or divisions.
It is impossible to deal with all the problems connected with the anekanta ontology and epistemology within the moderate compass of this work. In the case of the epistemological discussions, for instance, our attention is largely confined to a critical exposition of the two major methods of knowledge, viz., nayavāda and syādvāda, omitting, almost entirely, any elaborate references to the two ways of knowing, viz., pratyakṣapramāna and parokṣapramāṇa, as well as to the several problems therewith connected. Even in the case of the treatment of the anekanta ontology, our attention is mainly focused on the examination, the elucidation and the illustration of the most fundamental ontological presupposition, viz., the co-ordinate concept of identity-in-difference. The entire anekanta ontology is only an elaborate structure built up on this basic presupposition. The several topics dealt with in the various chapters like those on the Relations,
