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Gems of Jainism
are separately and independently real. Again each thing (vastu) and each soul possesses innumerable aspects of its own. “A thing has got an infinite number of characteristics of its own." Thus according to the metaphysical presupposition of Jainism, a thing with infinite characters exists independently. The Jain term for existent' is “Sat”. It designates an entity comprised of substance (dravya), attributes (guna) and mode (paryaya). The qualities are free from qualities of their own and they invariably and continuously undergo modifications or changes. The substance and attributes are inseparable and the attributes being the permanent essence of the substance can not remain without it. Modes, on the other side, are changing. There are modifications “in the form of acquiring (utpāda) new modes (paryāyà or bhāva) and losing (vyaya) old modes at each moment."? Thus a thing or “the conception of being as the union of permanent and change brings us naturally 'to the doctrine of anékāntavāda or what we may call relative pluralism as against the extreme absolution of the Upanishads and the pluralism of the Buddhists.” In view of the fact, “Jainism points out that both the permanent (the one, the real of Brahamanism ) and, the changing '(the many, the unreal of Buddhism), are the two sides of the same thing."4 "Considering on one side the human limitations to acquire the knowledge of a thing with all the infinite attributes and on the other side substance or the object of Knowledge possessing the three characteristics of production, destruction and permanance", nothing could be affirmed absolutely, as all affirmations could be relatively true under certain aspects or points of view only. "The affirmations are true of a thing only in a certain limited sense, and not absolutely"
Dr. Y.J. Padmarajiah in his famous book “The Jaina theories of Reality and Knowledge' says that “the metaphysical presuppositions of anékāntavāda, animating all the spheres of Jaina philosophical thinking, recognises the objectivity of the material universe. The objectivity of the universe signifies the fact that the universe is independent of mind or consciousness. This independence, or the duality of consciousness and the material universe, necessarily presupposes the principle of distinction, which exerts a cumulsive force until the logical goal of this principle is reached in the form of
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