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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248 Anekāntavāda and Syädvāda
doubt. (8) The eighth charge is the inevitable consequence which is deduced by the nihilist that nothing is real, as every phenomenon is asserted to be possessed of both existence and non-existence—which is impossible.
This formidable catalogue of charges against the doctrine of non-absolutism, which is established by sevenfold predication, is really not so formidable as it appears at first sight. The fundamental charge is the allegation of self-contradiction and the remaining counts are only consequential. If the charge of self-contradiction can be shown to be unfounded and unreal, the disposal of the consequential charges will be a matter of methodical deduction. We have fully discussed the nature of opposition in the first chapter in connection with our critique of the Laws of Thought. The inflated list of objections recorded in the chargesheet is only an elaboration of the concept of contradiction as endorsed by formal pure logic; but it has been established that a priori conception of opposition is untenable. It should, we think, suffice to say that the criterion of opposition is absence of proof of the co-existence of the opposites. In other words, it is from experience and not from pure thought that we should derive our notion of opposition. We have shown how the denial of this fundamental truth has divided idealists and realists and driven them to hostile camps. The only consistent logical conclusion of the a priori concept of opposition is the philosophy of Vedānta as taught by Sankarācārya. Sankara succeeds in denying the plurality with their relations by the application of the Law of contradiction, based upon the difference and opposition of being and non-being, which he thinks to be absolute.
But if we can persuade ourselves that a priori reasoning independent of experience is incompenent to yield insight into the nature of real and their relations, we cannot accept the findings of idealists. The Jaina is a realist and if Vedanta is the paragon of idealistic thought, as James has observed, Jaina philosophy is with equal propriety and truth entitled to be called the paragon of realism. If experience be the ultimate source of knowledge of reality and its behaviour, we cannot repudiate the plurality of things. The admission of plurality necessitates the recognition of the dual nature of reals as constituted of being and non-being as fundamental elements. One real will be distinguished from another real and this distinction, unless it is dismissed as error of judgment, presupposes that each possesses a different identity, in other words that being of one is not the being of
