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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
the Vedāntin and the Buddhist in claiming to detect, from their respective viewpoints, a radical self-contradiction in the Jaina synthesis of permanence and change.
The success of the Jaina synthesist in framing a durable ontological foundation for the entire edifice of the anekānta metaphysics is to be measured by the strength with which he would be able to vindicate his integrated viewpoint, not merely by pointing out that his viewpoint has an intrinsic validity, but also by bringing to bear upon it a dialectical power equal to the task. Matching an unerring vision with a robust rational defence is the work of a supreme philosophical genius. It is idle to dogmatise about whether the Jaina has stood the test successfully and triumphed over the obstacles in the way of his establishing his thesis. It is doubtful if any major philosophical problem can ever be solved by anybody or by any school once and for all. This much, however, may be said to his credit, viz., that he has at least perceived the problem and has gone some way at least towards achieving its solution.
Before proceeding to a dialectical examination of the most important implications of his metaphysical position, it would be worth while to see if his fundamental claim that permanence and change constitute the basic elements of reality is borne out by any major philosophical thinkers of the past and the present. That it is so, and, therefore, that the Jaina view in respect of its ultimate postulate of identity-in difference is not a lonely cry in a philosophical wilderness, may be confirmed by appealing to the impressive testimony of three great thinkers who, in spite of wide divergencies in
