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Ranchastikayasara Saptabhangi naja on the ground of the impossibility of contradictory attributes inhering in the same thing.
All that is said above by way of exposition and discussion would vindicate the claim of Saptabhangi against the charges brought against it by these scholars. Our account would be incomplete if these charges are not examined in this connection.
Now the author of the Sútras does not give any detailed reasons besides the one contained in the Sútra itself-that a thing cannot have selfcontradictory attributes. Asti and nasti, being and non-being or affirmation and negation, being contradictory epithets cannot be referred to the same thing. Hence the doctrine of such a predication is futile. This reasoning, though short, is interesting and suggestive. We have already pointed out the philosophical attitude adopted by the Jainas. A thing being of complex nature, having dravya and paryâya must be an identity in difference. Instead of rejecting the doctrine of reality for the reason given, they seem to claim that the real is real only because of such a capacity to comprehend and
cile the differences in itself, Here we are reminded of Bradley's polemic against "the nature of things". Though he admits the Hegelian doctrine of identity in difference, he cannot forget the scholastic traditions about identity and difference. Every concrete thing or person is according to Bradley a unity in diversity, and identity in difference a constant which is varying also. Now Bradley argues that such a nature implies selfcontradiction and internal conflict. This is so because it is not possible for us to know how the difference could be derived from and related to an identity. Hence he condemns such things to the limbo of appearances.
We have been suggesting the similarity between the Hegelian doctrine of identity and the Jaina doctrine of asti-nâsti. But we must raise a note of warning that the Jaina doctrine does not accept wholesale Hegelian metaphysics. Unlike Bradley, the greatest living representative of Hegelian absolutism, the Jainas emphasize this important aspect of reality. The reason which is employed by Bradley to condemn a thing to be appearance, is the very reason which serves the Jain thinkers to proclaim the reality of the same.
The commentators deserve sepcial attention. Hence we shall examine their criticism in detail. Sankara's criticism is of three main stages. First, he tries to point out the intrinsic impossibility of this doctrine. Secondly, its practical futility. Thirdly, its conflict with many other Jaina doctrines. Being and non-being cannot be predicated of the same thing just as it is impossible to predicate hot and cold of the same. Mutually contradictory and conflicting attributes cannot exist together of the same thing at the same time. This objection appears to be unanswerable, but if we remember the two different aspects of self-relation and other relation we can very easily see that the objection does not hold good. Very often even in ordinary experience we have examples of co-existing attributes which are in the
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