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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The Axioms of Non-absolutism
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source of existence while the extrinsic nature of a substance is the source of non-existence. The substance of earth of which a pot is made is its own substance. Similarly the pot has its own space, time, colour and shape. A pot exists with reference to its own substance, space, time and modes. But it is non-existent as alien substance, space, time and modes. This relative estimation is a principle of synthesis. A pot does not both exist and not-exist with reference to identical factors of reference. Existence and non-existence as mutually opposed attributes do certainly exist simultaneously in the same object, but the basic conditions of the two (viz. existence and non-existence) are not identical. The prirciple of relativity points to the way of synthesis and testifies the reality of co-existence.
Acārya Akalanka has mentioned a number of reasons for the admission of existence and non-existence. A pot exists with reference to its own nature, it does not exist with reference to an alien nature. This argument leads us to investigate the meaning of 'own nature and ‘alien nature'. Akalanka's reply is—the own nature refers to the things that is responsible for the application of the 'pot concept and the ‘pot word', and what is not amenable to such usage is the alien nature. The affirmation of the own nature and the denial of the alien nature establish the reality of a thing. If the alien nature, viz. a piece of cloth, is not excluded from the own nature, viz. the pot, the word 'pot' would be applicable as designation to all things. And in spite of such exclusion, if the own nature of the pot is not cognised, the latter would be a non-entity like a hare's horn.
The specifically intended pot again passes through a number of phases. Any one among these phases is the own nature while the preceding and succeeding phases are its alien natures.
An intermediate phase of the independent pot again is constantly subject to growth and decay. Therefore the state of the present moment is the own nature while the past and future states are the alien natures. If the existence of the pot is determinable by the past and future moments, exactly in the fashion of the present moment, then all pots-past, present and future should together be existent at any one moment. The same logic will apply to the nature of non-existence. In other words, if a particular non-existence were determinable by all the past and future non-existences in the same fashion as the present non-existence is determined by its own nature, the upshot will be that any particular moment of non-existence is a totality of all . non-existences-past, present and future. Existence and non-existence
