Comparative Study Of Jaina Theories Of Reality And Knowledge

Author(s): Y J Padmarajaiah
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal

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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
indefinable. This is the reason why the former group of thinkers feels that the tests like neti neti (not thus, not so), or neha nānāsti kiñcana (there is no plurality of existence), etc., deny plurality and finitude (bheda) in the absolute or brahman, but not, as the group interprets, plurality and finitude as such'.
Both Bhāskara and Yādava sternly maintain that identity and difference co-exist in all that is'. Every object of experience is, they say, a blend of the generic basis and the specific transformations of the generic basis. Brahman, the ultimate basis of the manifold universe of objects and selves, is conceived as retaining its infinity, purity and perfection even while it finitizes itself into the universe of objects and selves". It is, therefore, the infinite cause, or the unitary ground, of the finite diversities both of which form, in this view, not mutually incompatible", but correlative elements of the total reality.
Despite their agreement on the basic position of the bhedābheda or bhinnäbhinna approach to the nature of reality Bhāskara and Yādava differ on a few points, two of which deserve mention here. In the first place, brahman, according to Bhāskara, is the unconditioned absolute which, by virtue of upādhis, or "limiting adjuncts', conditions itself into the
1. Cf. kāryarūpena nānātvam abhedah kāranātmanā / hemātmana
yathābhedah kundalādyātmanā bhidā // Ibid., p. 18. 2. Cf. tasmāt sarvam ekānekātmakaṁ na atyantam abhinnań
bhinnam vā / Ibid., p. 101. 3. Cf. Srinivasachari, op.cit., p. 144, and IP., Vol. II, p. 670. 4. Çf. IP., Vol. II, p. 671.