Jain Journal 1966 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 10

50
Hence what has appeared as an absolute truth to our static observer turns out to be no more than a relative truth because of the complex nature of reality. Apparently then the notion of an absolute is a mere abstraction, the outcome of the frailty of the human mind. In reality it does not exist except in imagination and emotion. And once this scientific truth is digested by all religions, as Jainism did long ago, the human society could get rid of much that is trash emotion and be restored on the right track'. But this is no easy job and there are vested interests. Even after the truth has been discovered, it takes millennia before it goes deep. Upto this time we have been arguing, like a rabbit and a hippopotamus, as to whether man is really a large animal, each thinking his own point of view the most natural one and the other a pure flight of imagination. We must realise that each one's experience acquires a definite meaning in relation to a definite observer. The same is true with our experience with reality which "belongs to the subjective part of our observation...... not to the objective part" and the two never merge.
JAIN JOURNAL
It is because of the complex nature of realitys and the limited horizon of man howsoever great, all the controversy has cropped up. On the one hand, there was the Upanisadic view (Vedantic) that Being (sat) alone was true; on the other, there was the view also mentioned in the Upanisads, though with disapproval, that non-Being (asat) was the ultimate truth. But these views, according to Jainism, are partially true, true only in relation to the observer and each develops into a dogma as soon as it is asserted that it conveys the whole truth about reality. Equally dogmatic in the eyes of the Jainas are the two other views which also we occasionally come across in the Upanisads according to which neither Being nor non-Being is the truth and reality must be characterised by 'both' or 'neither', i.e., 'both-is-and-is-not' and 'neither-is and-is-not'. Likewise, on the nature of things, the Chandogya Upanişad held that since in all changes the clay-matter remained permanent, that alone was true whereas the change of form and state were but appearances the nature of which was difficult to explain or demonstrate. In this view, therefore, the unchanged substance alone was true while the changing forms were mere name-objects (nämarūpa), a mere illusion of senses. The Buddhists in contrast held that what was conceived as the original clay-matter was itself a specific quality liable to change and hence they reject the notion of permanence outright. The very fact that this sort of controversy is possible and did really crop up indicates that no absolute assertion is correct and yet the upholders of these partial view-points were not loath to press for their recognition as absolute truths. This is an intractable controversy which the Jainas alone sought to resolve.