Concept of Paryaya in Jain Philosophy

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

Page 85

The Concept of Paryaya - Mode 73 "utpad - vyaya - dhrauvyayuktam sat" (5.30) Origination, cessation and persistence constitute existence. What appear and disappear are modes. What persists is substance. The modes are impermanent, but the substance is permanent. Existence is the combination of impermanence and permanence, modes and substance". There is always continuity between origination, cessation and persistence, between modes and substance. In the cessation of one mode there is the origination of another and through this, substance persists. 1.6 All substances are real as they have existence. But what is existence ? It is a combination of origination or appearance (utpada), cessation or disappearance (vyaya) and persistence or continuity or permanence (dhrauvya). A substance endures through its different transformations and transmutations. It is thus an entitative whole that changes as well as endures. 1.7 The introduction by Dr. Nathma Tatia and Prof. Muni Mahendra Kumar to "Illuminator or Jaina tenants"l (second Ed.) by Ganadhipati Tulsi is really illuminating the subject of substance (draya), qualities or attributes (guna) and modes (parayayas). The same two authors have translated Tattvartha Sutra in English. "That which is"3. They have stated, "a substance has been defined as the substratum of qualities and modes (paryayas). The qualities and modes cannot be imagined as attributes without any support. Such support is the substance. The qualities are the attributes that are the permanent features of a substance (Sahabhavi dharmogunah); whereas the modes (paryayas) are the passing features of it". 1.8 The distinction between dravya and paryaya is ultimately only an intelligent device for enlightenment of the tyro. In fact, the substance is also liable to change, though not to absolute cessation and disappearance like the modes. 1.9 Relationship of substance, quality and mode. The reality of relation is a fundamental concept of Jains. A "dravya" is the identity of an infinite multiplicity of modes. It is a unity and diversity in one, and the relation involved is neither one of absolute identity nor one of absolute otherness, but something different from both. It is sui generis which does not permit of being determined by absolute