Jain Journal 1966 10

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

Page 41

OCTOBER, 1966
6. Syāt nāsti abaktabyaśca-may be, partly or in a certain sense the jar is not and indescribable in a certain sense as well.
7. Syāt asti nāsti abaktabyaśca-may be, partly or in a certain sense the jar is and is not and is indescribable as well in a certain sense.
Basing on a sūtra in Brahmasūtra which reads naikasmin sambhabāt (i.e., coexistence of contradictory attributes abiding in the same substance is an impossibility), Sankara raised his voice against syādvāda and demanded its total rejection. All through his argument, Sankara lays great stress on the law of contradiction which, he feels, cannot be transgressed without ourselves committing contradictions and inconsistencies. Sankara's criticism is, however, misplaced ; for, when the Jainas deny the validity of the law of contradiction, they only dispute
claim of absolute validity which tends to exclude the other, specially the opposite, thought. But this is untenable this is half-truth or only one aspect of the truth, and not the whole truth. The other side of the truth or rather the complementary side of the truth is that every definite thought, by the very fact that it is definite, has a necessary relation to its negative and cannot be separated from it without losing its true meaning. It is definite only by virtue of its opposition with what it is not. So nothing howsoever definite can be conceived as self-identical in the absolute sense of the term. Thus syādvāda which lays down that the law of contradiction is the negative aspect of the law of identity stands on merit.
UNITY IN DIFFERENCE—This leads us to another, though allied topic, viz., unity in difference on which the Jainas differ from the Vedāntins.. In the Jaina view, the Absolute is the ultimate unity of thought which expresses itself as jiva on the one side and correlative of the subject as ajīva on the other. This unity is all-inclusive which embraces everything that is real. The Vedāntins, in contrast, hold that our intellect deals with the relative only and the Absolute therefore lies beyond the world of the relative, beyond the world of phenomena. In the Jaina view, the Absolute is not beyond the phemonena ; rather, all phenomena are but particular aspects of this all-inclusive unity which is Absolute. If the Absolute is the unity and not plurality, how do you explain plurality which is a stupendous fact and which cannot be denied. The Vedāntins try to evade the issue by calling plurality an illusion (māyā) and not a reality. In doing so, they shark reality.
In the Jaina view, the Absolute is the Universal. This Universal is not the abstract universal of formal logic, but concrete universal. The