________________
170
JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
confirms this truth in the sutra: dravyāśraya nirgunah gunah. Sattva and asattva, the attributes of a vastu only, cannot, therefore, give rise to further pairs of similar attributes. Hence the question of anavastha, the Jaina concludes, does not arise in his case."
4. Sankara, and 5. Vyatikara: Neither sankara (confusion) nor vyatikara (exchange of natures) between bhāva and abhava would arise from the Jaina point of view owing to the admitted fact that the variegated character of reality is clearly evident as in the case of a multi-coloured gem (mecakaratna) or of a similar fabric (citrapaṭa). Moreover,
1. TRAG, p. 243.
2. Further, in course of his defence of the Jaina stand against this charge, Gunaratna distinguishes two kinds of infinite regress (anavastha): one the 'vicious' infinite, and the other the nonvicious or the 'harmless' (aśakta) infinite. The names he gives them respectively, are mulakṣatikari (lit. that which cuts the root) and amulakṣatikari (lit. that which does not cut the root). They are so described because the first one tends to cut at the very root of the substance it analyses and the second one to 'save' the root. The second one is also described as being indicative or illuminative of the manifoldness of reality (amulakṣatikaritvena pratyutānekāntasyoddipakatvāt). See TRD, p. 234, and compare the stanza, quoted by Gunaratna, with the one pointed out by Dasgupta as having been quoted by. Jayanta (HIP, Vol. I, p. 160, f. n. 1). Although both of them describe the two distinctions of the 'vicious' and the 'harmless' infinites the latter half of the stanza quoted by Gunaratna is adapted to express the 'anantya' or 'the anekāntatva' principle of Jaina ontology. It is, however, a pity that Gunaratna does not fully work out the implications of his argument and show how the 'harmless' infinite-which he exalts as being a 'bhuṣaṇa'-is directly applicable to the Jaina theory which is, ex hypothesi, accepted as being free from any kind of infinite regress.
