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THE ESSENCE OF JAINA SCRIPTURES
existent quality and the existent modification.
And, as in the one pearl-necklace the white quality is not the necklace, or the string, or the pearl, and as the necklace, the string and the pearl are not the white quality, so that they have mutual “not being that,” and this a-tad-bhava (the fact of being non-A), defined as “not being that,” is based on the fact that one is different (anya) from the other,
in the same way in the substance the existence-quality is not the substance, or another quality (of the substance), or a modification, nor are the substance, the other quality and the modification the existence-quality; so that they have mutual “not being that,” and this a-tad-bhava, defined as “not being that,” is based on the fact that one is different (anya) from the other.
Now he rejects a-tad-bhava ("esse non-A) as a definition of nonexistence in general:
II.16. The substance is not the quality, and the quality is not the tattva (substance), indeed; for, according to the teaching (of Jina), this a-tad-bhava is not non-existence simply. (108)
In one substance that which is the substance is not the quality, and that which is the quality is not the substance; thus the nonexistence of the substance under the aspect of quality, or of the quality under the aspect of substance, a non-existence under-a-certain-aspect (tena), is a-tad-bhava.
And, since this suffices to justify the notion-of-otherness (anyatva), we may not define a-tad-bhava as non-existence simply, so that, for instance, substance should be non-existence of quality and quality nonexistence of substance. For, were this true, then the result would be either plurality of the substance, or “nothingness” (shunyata) of both substance and quality, or their form as negation (apoha).95
For (I) as the non-existence of thinking substance is unthinking substance and the non-existence of unthinking substance is thinking substance, so that there is a plurality in them, in the same way the non-existence of substance would be quality, and the non-existence of quality would be substance, so that there would be plurality in substance, although it is one.
(II) Or, as in the case of non-existence of gold there is non-existence of gold-in-general (suvarnatva), and in the case of non-existence of "being gold” there is non-existence of gold, and thus absolute-nihility
