Introduction to Jainsim

Author(s): Dewan Bahadur A B Lathe
Publisher: Jain Mitra Mandal

Page 71

JAINISM
existence which is, in its ultimate results, the same view as is taken by thc Abhaya Vadis. Thus the Baudhas are exactly our "flowing philosophers" holding every-thing to be 'mcre currents of incessant change.' Jainism waged a fierce war with them in old times, although by some irony of fate, in our own days, distinguished antiquarians piously confused one belligerent with the other. We shall only briefly recount of the principle objections against our Indian Heracleitians.
Nothing is, but everything is not, as soon as it is. The moment that it lives, is also the moment that it ceases to live. There is no being; all is always becoming. But is becoming possible for what is not being ? Cause and effect are in reality two phases of one and the same thing. The two are relative Icrms, with their solidarity so vital that the negation of the onc is thic ncgation of the other. But Kshanika Vad makes the relation fictitious and consequently there is ncither causc nor csscct in any case. Causation is thus reduced to mcrc 'scqucncc in timc.' But even this idea of mere timc-relation is untcnablc in Budhism. If there is no cause, if there is nothing in the causc that is necessarily productive of the effect and is there is no cssential relation between the two, all certainty in the natural order vanishics and there remains no uniformity cven for bare timc successions, as the Kshanikavadis in ancient India or Comic and Mill in modern Europe tricd to hold. The Vadis were not satisficd with these arguments and tricy rejoined by insisting that the 'unity of nature'between cause and cffcct as understood by Jainism was a fictitious or Jupacharika onc. It is, said thcy, an illusion, a mental habit and not a real fact. What is an illusion, or as Mill would say a monial habit and not a rcal fact. What is an illusion mental habit? we think of Vararaka (n cal) as bcing a lion' or 'like a lion' by illusion or mental habit;but is this possiblc without our over having soen some linn? Even an Illusion pre-supposes a rcality of which it is an illusion.