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COSMOLOGY : OLD AND NEW
words of Mr. V.R. Gandhi :
"Noumenon and phenomenon are not two separate existences but only two modes of our looking upon the full contents of a thing, part of which is known and part unknown to us now. The fallacy in the popular mind in reference to these terms is that of confounding logical distinction
logical distinction with an actual separation. In the Buddhist view nothing is permanent. Transitoriness is the only reality. As Professor Oldenberg says: "The speculation of the Brahmanas apprehended being in all being, that of Buddhists becoming in all apparent being.'
"The Jainas, on the contrary, consider being and becoming as two different and complementary ways of our viewing the same thing. Reality in the Jaina view is a permanent subject of changing states. To be, to stand in relation, to be active, to act upon other things, to obey law, to be a cause, to be a permanent subject of states, to be the same today as yesterday, to be identical in spite of its varying activities, these are the Taina conceptions of reality. Mere becoming is asmuch an abstraction as mere being. In short, being and becoming are complements of the full notion of a reality."'17
To many a mind the co-existence of this triple phenomenon may seem an obvious contradiction in terms but, according to Jaina logic all contradictory statements are not nessarily hostile to one another (Syâdvāda theory of Jainas). This is expressed in the following sutra.
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SUTRA 32. 3faraftafts: 113711
ARPITĀNARPITA-SIDDHEH [32] (The determination of substances is done by giving prominence to their indestructible essence and giving a secondary place to their changeable conditions as it is necessary for their full consideration, because the permanent and the changeable aspects, though existing simultaneously, cannot be described simultaneously.
Similarly in other pairs of contradictory characteristics, one
317. Quoted from the Speech of Mr. V. R. Gandhi on the subject before The East India Association (London), on May 21, 1900.
