Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 196

Anekanta, Syādvāda and Saptabhangi 179
made to mean the whole truth in its own peculiar way through the individual characteristic (e.g. existence, nonexistence and the like) directly expressed by its predicate.
It may be mentioned in this connection that the Jaina philosophers have enumerated eight distinct factors---viz., time and the likewhich are conceived as differentiating limits as well as integrating bonds of the characteritics of a real and as such respectively conditions of the consecutive and simultaneous expression of these characteristics.69 Thus (1) time is a differentiating limit, because a unitary entity cannot prima facie possess a number of different characteristics at one and the same time, and if it is found to do so, its unity is dissolved into plurality, there being as many entities as there are characteristics. This is the finding of the analytic standpoint. In the synthetic standpoint, on the other hand, time is an integrating bond. The plurality of characteristics is found to be somehow bound into a unity by means of simultaneity. Similarly, (2) self-identity (ātmarūpa) of a characteristic is a differentiating limit, because it differentiates one characteristic from another. It is a uniting bond as well in view of its reference to an entity which is the common referend of all other coordinate characteristics. (3) The substratum, likewise, is regarded as a differentiating limit in respect of its aspect that varies with each of its characteristics and as an integrating bond in respect of its aspect that is the constant reference of all those characteristics. In the same way, (4) the relation (sambandha) of identity-cumdifference that obtains between an entity and its characteristics functions as a differentiating limit when taken as a relation of difference, and as an integrating bond when taken as a relation of identity. Similarly, (5) the influence exerted by each characteristic upon an entity, viewed as an isolated event, is the differentiating limit and the same influence qua a common function of all characteristics is the integrating bond. (6) The substance-space, likewise, viewed as an inelastic space-point of a particular characteristic is a differentiating limit; but, viewed as a common locus of the coordinate characteristics, it is an integrating bond of those characteristics. In the same manner, (7) the association70 between an entity and its characteristics can be viewed as a differentiating limit as well as an integrating bond. Lastly,
69. TCH Tadafi #74-gitaratzira i da imafititeThaifong-TV, 42 (Varttikas 12 and 13). 70. This is different from 7-2 (the fourth factor mentioned above) in that the
former stands for difference qualified by identity' while the latter for 'identity qualified by difference.' In other words, in samsarga the element of difference is prominent while in sambandha the element of identity is salient.--SBT, pp. 33-4.