Concept of Paryaya in Jain Philosophy

Author(s): S R Bhatt, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Wide Implications of the Concept of Paryaya Samani Chaitany Pragya The concept of paryaya (mode) is related to the concept of change. Substance and mode are the issues which have been widely discussed in the field of philosophy under the names of being and becoming, permanence and impermanence, identity and difference and last but not least the universal and the particular. More or less all of them have emerged out of the same problem i.e. the problem of change-cumeternity. According to Bhagavati Sutra and Pannavana substance is being, permanent, identical and universal and mode is becoming impermanent, different and particular. Bhagavati Sutra mentions that reality manifests in two forms i.e. substance and mode. It does not mean that reality is divided. It is, in fact, one but observer can see it in two forms. Siddhasena Gani supporting the scriptural view in his commentary on Tattvartha Sutra says : "Ontologically substance and mode are inseparable. The distinction of the two is only the mental projection."1 In such a situation the absolutist view about the substance and the mode in the reality can not be reasonable, as both are interconnected. To regard one as true and another as untrue is as meaningless as to breathe without air. Substance is the uniting force through which paradoxical nature of the reality merges into unity. Contrary to it, mode is the dividing force through which unity of reality is changed into diversity. If it were not so, why everything is not coming out of everything ? This is the