Book Title: Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture
Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
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Anekānta, Syadvāda and Saptabhangi 153
function can be fulfilled by a purely negative experience, as it does not claim any determinate fact as its object. This is obviously a contradiction. This positive-cum-negative character of experience is a proof direct of its object as a synthesis of being and non-being, existence and non-existence, as explained above. This is also corroborated by the fact that the affirmative propositions become fully significant only when supplemented by the correlative negative propositions and vice versa. Neither the affirmative nor the negative proposition, taken by itself, is capable of giving the intended sense in its fulness.
Here the problem of the relation between the real and its characteristics and between the characteristics themselves crops up. For the sake of convenience, the real may be called a 'substantive' and its characteristic an 'adjective. What then is the selation between a substantive and its adjective, and also between one adjective and another belonging to the same substantive ? The relation cannot be absolute identity, for then the two terms would merge into absolute unity, that is, the relation would annihilate itself. Nor can it be absolute difference, for this would leave the terms unrelated and the relation would be equivalent to ‘no relation'. The Jaina philosopher seeks to solve the difficulty by postulating a peculiar kind of relation called 'indentity-cum-difference which is neither absolute identity, nor absolute difference, nor an artificial conjunction of the two, but a new type which is sui-generis (jātyantarātmaka). Accordingly, the real also as conceived by him, is neither absolute being, nor absolute non-being, nor an artificial synthesis of the two, but 'a focal unity of being and non-being, which cannot be reached by logical thought'-a unity which is 'immanent in the elements, but at the same time transcends them in that it is not analysable into elements'.' This estimate of relation does not allow the terms to merge, nor to fall apart. The substantive owns its adjectives on account of its identity with them, and the adjectives preserve their individuality on account of their difference from the substantive. The adjectives do not fall apart on account of their identity with the substantive, and the substantive does not lose itself in its adjective on account of its difference from them.
The Vaiseșika philosopher has levelled the charge of truism 5. न प्रमाणेनविधिमात्रमेव परिच्छिद्यते परव्यावृत्तिमनादधानस्य तस्य प्रवृत्तेः सांकर्यप्रसंगाद्
अप्रतिपत्ति-समानताप्रसंगो वा। न प्रतिषेधमात्र, विधिमपरिच्छिन्दानस्य इदम् अस्माद् व्यावृत्तं इति
HECH - 37TAT: SKh, IX, pp. 163-4. 6. Sce AJP, p. 65. 7. See JPN, pp. 114 and 115.
