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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
nature, the nature would not be its own; it is because of its negative nature, its differentiation from other things, that a thing possesses its specific nature."
Advaitism, owing to its consistent adherence to the principle: ekam evādvitiyaṁ brahma, therefore, explains away the principle of difference. If reality is considered, on the other hand, to be all negation or non-being (ekāntābhāvātmakatve) then everything would become devoid of any intrinsic nature (nissvabhāvatā syat) and then the world would be, as has been conceded by the Voidist (Sūnyavādin) "a tissue of false things, falsely related' and would vanish like mist...when subjected to philosophic investigation"".
1. SM (notes), p. 165.
2.
Cf. anubhava eşa mṛṣā. Nāgārjuna's Madhyamika kā. (St. Petersburg Edn.), p. 58. Quoted in OIP, p. 220, f.n. 1. 3. Regarding the controversy whether the Sunyavādin is a nihilist, scholars like Hiriyanna, Dhruva and others maintain, against critics like Sogen and Stcherbatsky, that śünyavādin is a nihilist advocating 'void'or 'essencelessness'-also rendered as 'Emptiness' or 'Universal Void'-of all reality as the outcome of philosophic investigation. Hiriyanna observes: "Not the Hindus alone, but the Jainas also, hold the Madhyamika to be a nihilist." OIP, p. 222. He also points out Candrakirti's distinction between the genuine nihilism and the 'common or vulgar nihilism' as consisting in that the former is the result of 'a logical scrutiny', whereas the latter of merely 'a dogmatic or whimsical denial'. The 'result' or conclusion is, of course, the same, viz., all is negative (sarvaśunyataiva param tattvam). Ibid., especially f.ns. 1 and 3, in the latter of which two important Jaina authorities (from one of which the Sanskrit quotation just given within the brackets is taken) are cited. See also SM, Intro. p. CXVII. S. Mookerjee also writes to the same effect: "If non-existence were to be the sole and exclusive character of things, nothing would be existent and, consequently, neither affirmation nor negation of anything would be possible. Paradoxical as it may appear, this is,
