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CHAPTER IX
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stated or developed in Jainism. Nevertheless its necessity and importance are undoubtedly clear. It would not, therefore, be inappropriate if we approach Kant for an explicit formulation of this idea which is germane to the fundamental notion of Anekanta in Jainism.
It has been observed earlier that the Anekantavādin postulates the interrelatedness of all reals in the universe, and, therefore, that one who has a total cognisance of one thing would have a total cognisance of everything and vice versa. This interrelatedness or relativity of nature evidently involves, at any rate in its narrow sense, the permeation of the relational factor in reality, but does not explicitly specify the dynamical element of interaction among the reals. It is this dynamical or active element which is provided for by the principle of 'reciprocity' or 'interaction', or 'community (commercium).
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Without 'the reciprocity of the manifold' the interrelatedness, therefore, becomes 'merely an ideal relation', whereas with it the inter-relatedness becomes a 'real one' This is the significance of the description of reciprocity as "the action and reaction of quite different substances, of which each determines the other's state..". Prichard's instance of
1. Kant formulates this principle under his "Third Analogy', as: "All substances, so far as they coexist, stand in thorough-going community, that is, in mutual interaction". In his earlier formulation (first edition) Kant uses 'reciprocity' in place of 'community'. KCPR, p. 233.
2. This is one of the two Latin meanings of the original German 'Gemeinschaft'. See KCPR (1923), p. 381, f.n. 5.
