Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 256

Non-Absolutism (Anekāntavāda) 239
The theory of sevenfold predication may be regarded as a logical elaboration of the position of the Jaina that each position is concomitant with its negation, or which is the same thing, that position is inconceivable without negation. This logical theory is in its turn derived from Jaina ontology that reality is determinate. We have shown that determinate reality is the focal point in which being and non-being coincide. Absolutism consists in maintaining either being or non-being as absolute truth and in holding that one is in absolute opposition to the other. The Vedāntist and the Sünyavādin are paragons of absolutism. The former holds being, absolute and undetermined by non-being, as the whole truth, whereas the Buddhist nihilist accepts non-being as the only truth. The Jaina is non-absolutist in that he accepts both as the true determinations of the real, which is unique and common, particular and universal, positive and negative, rolled into one. But is this non-absolutism absolute and universal ? The proof of non-absolutism is the sevenfold predication. Does the sevenfold predication apply to non-absolutism itself ? If it does apply, non-absolutism will be concomitant with its opposite, which is the subject-matter of the second predicate. The first proposition will be non-absolutism exists' and the second proposition will be 'non-absolutism does not exist.' The negation of non-absolutism is equivalent to the affirmation of absolutism. Thus the universal advocacy of non-absolutism is vitiated by self-contradiction in that it ends in affirming absolutism. Non-absolutism is either absolute or non-absolute. If it is absolute, non-absolutism is not universal, which is the position of the Jaina, since at any rate there is one real which is absolute. If non-absolutism is itself non-absolute, it is not absolute and as such it is not the universal truth. Tossed between the two horns of the dilemma non-absolutism thus simply evaporates. The same result is attained from a further consideration of the implication of the second predication, which has been shown to amount to affirmation of absolutism. This absolutism, being in its turn, non-absolute,would require another absolute as its opposite, and the latter again another and so on to infinity. If sevenfold predication be not applicable to the truth of non-absolutism, the former would not be universal, which is again a contraction of the Jaina position.
The Jaina holds non-absolutism to be the universal truth and as such it is not exempt from application of the sevenfold predication, which is the sole criterion of non-absolutism. The application of the