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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
Jaina notion of jātyantaratva as an argument against a world of repetitive cycle of entities and events : "Bare repetition it may be affirmed does not even exist. Manufactured articles are not identical though they may be identical within certain limits of precision. It is, however, true that the more closely instances reproduce each other the less useful they are for scientific discovery.""
Leibniz is more emphatically clear on this point. He states: “There is nothing in the universe which does not enjoy a certain singularity, which is to be found in no other thing.": He asserts, under the principle of the 'Identity of Indiscernibles", that not even any two leaves of a tree or any two drops of water or of milk could be entirely alike' because of the fact that "The things are......distinguishable in themselves".5
The jātyantara trait of an entity is grounded in the fundamental manifoldness (anekāntasvarūpatva) which is believed by the Jaina to be at the heart of all reality. The
1. Repetitive in the sense of lack of individuality among entities.
Space, Time and Deity, S. Alexander (London, 1920), Vol. I,
p. 231. 3. Mon., p. 222, f.n. 15.
Explaining this principle of the 'Identity of Indiscernibles' with respect to a Monad, the Leibnizian conception of a real, Leibniz writes: "Indeed, each Monad must be different from every other. For in nature there are never two beings which are perfectly alike and in which it is not possible to find an internal difference or at least a difference founded
upon an intrinsic quality". Ibid., p. 222. 5. See ibid., p. 37, f.n. 1 and A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy
of Leibniz, B. Russell, (2nd Edition, 1949), pp. 55 ff. and 220.
