Book Title: First Steps to Jainism Part 1
Author(s): Sancheti Asso Lal, Manakmal Bhandari
Publisher: Sancheti Trust Jodhpur

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Page 266
________________ 122 First Steps to Jainism Jaina takes the observation of concomitance in agreement and in difference to be one observation,.... The Jaina posits a twofold cause for the perception of universal relation-an internal and an external condition. The internal condition is found in the developed state of our mind and the external condition is the repeated observation of the sequence of the two events". (JPN p. 217.) "....Such concepts as causality, substance, attribute and the like, are no doubt the ways in which the mind works up the data of experience, but this does not mean with the Jaina that they are true of the mind only and not of the extra-mental reality which they purport to understand. The Jaina would take them to be the instruments of discovery of the nature of reality, internal and external, which render the same kind of service as the sense-organs do". (JPN, p. 217.) "... The different categories viz., the selves, matter, time, space and so on, are deductions from experimental data. They have been posited since general concepts presuppose their existence and since without these principles the data of experience cannot be organized into a system. These categories in spite of their general and comprehensive character are not only not inconsistent with the existence of individual entities, but on the contrary they are entirely based on the objective data. Without the individual existents these categories would be reduced to unmeaning class concepts. The affirmation of categories as objective principles is thus proof of the existence of individual reals, which are included within the ambit of these categories. Without the individuals forming their contents the categories would be empty and barren, and the individuals without the categories would be reduced to a welter of chaos. The Jaina is a believer in plurality no doubt, but that plurality is not an unrelated chaos. The plurality is a system inasmuch as each individual is cemented with the rest by definite bonds of relationship". (JPN, pp. 299-300.) "From the analytic point of view (paryayarthikanaya) the world is an infinite plurality with their infinite variations and modes. But the anal does not give us the whole nature of reality as it is. It is a partial picture that we derive of the world by means of such approach. The whole gamut of reality, however, reveals its universal unitive nature as one existence when it is envisaged Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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