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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
but a deep difference in the approach of philosophical analysis that prevents syādvädin from throwing in his lot with a despotic absolute which brooks no rivalry from coexistent truths and, therefore, should raise no issue of synthesis. It is the love of a superficial reconciliation that lies at the back of the claim that syādvāda is a "halfway house to absolutism”. Thus the synthesis achieved by syādvāda is one of discriminative unity rather than of a secondless unit which cannot be approached either by synthesis or by analysis. The conception of a unitary absolute has been, no doubt, a constant lure for mysticism and poetry. But the sphere of reality is often less lofty and very much less ethereal. Absolutism escapes from the harrowing problems of existence under the master excuse of the absolute. But it is through a tortuous process of analysis and synthesis that the secrets of elusive reality grudgingly yield themselves. This is provided for by nayavāda and syādvāda respectively.
If by lack of proper synthesis' syādvādin does not instal an absolute at the centre as well as on the periphery of his philosophy and logic syādvāda pleads guilty to the charge and will be satisfied to remain an unrepentent sinner. The threat of its modes not hanging together does not baffle him since he is not unwilling to retain to some extent distinctive
of facts, to impose an absolutist or monist interpretation on their conception of truth and reality, as has been done in some quarters, on the plea of pseudo-simplicity, or perhaps owing to speculative bias". Narimohana Bhattacharya's paper on "The Jaina Conception of Truth and Reality" (Proceedings of the First Indian Philosophical Congress, 1925, Calcutta University, Calcutta, 1927), p. 165.
