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

Previous | Next

Page 70
________________ The Anekantavāda of the Jainas 53 its own moment and in its own state. But it will be non-existent in substance other than its own, in place other than its own, in moment other than its own and in state other than its own. The Jainas have taken meticulous care in considering reals under these conditions both as their own and as foreign and concluded that applying these two opposite sets of conditions to reals, they may be regarded as of one character as well as of another character. Without going into further details of application of these conditions we might say that the general conclusion with regard to reals which the Jainas have arrived at is that reals necessarily are of manifold character. So any categorical statement in which we predicate only one quality of a subject in a judgment will represent only one aspect of the real to the exclusion of innumerable ones of which it is capable. Such a statement will thus be an expression of a merely partial truth. Such a one-sided categorical expression of only one aspect of a real, the Jainas have termed naya. Anaya is thus a categorical judgment made with regard to an object by one who, in order to satisfy one's own particular purpose, makes such a judgment without removing the possibility of other judgments with regard to it. From what has been said it is not unnatural to suppose an infinite number of nayas corresponding to the infinite aspects, of which the real is capable. But the Jainas are wise enough to classify under the two heads, the permanent and the changeful aspects, in which they tell us, reals are capable of being represented. These two are comprehensive enough to include all possible aspects of reals. Thus if the facts and phenomena of the world are understood in terms of their permanent and changeful aspects, then and then only we have fulfilment of our practical life. Similarly our practical life is served rightly only when we learn to look at things of the world as both general and particular and not as general or particular. The Jaina is of opinion that our knowledge of the Real can be valid only when such knowledge is consistent with and favours practice. From the analysis of the different nayas as given by the Jainas, it is found that reals are possessed of an infinite variety of qualities, and the nayas are only so many different ways of expressing the relations of the infinite qualities with the real, though each of them is expressive of a partial truth of the matter. The nayas then are infinite, corresponding to infinite qualities of objects and to the infinite variety of relations in which these qualities stand to the reals.

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400