Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 271

254 Anekantavada and Syādvāda
The aforesaid duality is repudiated by Prabhākara, the great Mimāmsist, who denies the reality of non-bing. It is maitained by him that being is an indivisible simple characteristic of a real and non-being is only the self-same being as understood in reference to another real. It is being all the same and all the while and non-being is only another name of it. The difference of nomenclature, however, does not presuppose a factual difference in the make-up of a real. The Jaina affirmation of being and non-being as elements in the real is thus an assumption based on the assumption of numerical difference of non-being from being, which is not a fact. But the Jaina thinks this contention to be based upon an unsound principle, which, if admitted, will lead to the abolition of many an accredited characteristic of reality. It is true that a real generates a positive cognition of being' qua its self-identity as determined by its own context and the same real gives rise to the idea of 'non-being' in reference to another real in another context. If the difference of conditions and relations be a reason for denying the objectivity or numerical differnce of the contents of cognition, we do not see how being can be asserted as an objective characteristic in preference to non-being, both being equa y conditioned. Moreover, such attributes as fatherhood and sonship of the same person understood in relation to different persons would also be unreal, or be the same. Again, number will be an ideal creation, or there will be no difference of number as one, two, three and so on. A thing is one in its own self and thus has oneness as its determination, and the same thing together with another thing becomes two and thus comes to have the number 'two as its determination. It cannot be thought for the reasons assigned that the attribute of number is an ideal creation or the different numbers are not really different. Being and non-being have no doubt the same substratum, but the sameness of substratum does not argue the sameness of the attributes. Nor again can it be maintained that being and non-being are identical with their substratum and hence identical with each other. In that case, the different numbers would be the same number having the same substratum and having the same relation of identity to the same substratum. Nor can the difference of 'number' or other relative attributes, as fatherhood etc., be preserved by virtue of the relation of inherence (samavāya), as inherence will be found to be only a name for identity-cum-difference (tādātmya).
There is, then, no logical justification for supposing that being and non-being are numerically identical. It ought to be accepted on