Jain Journal 1968 10

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

Page 32

OCTOBER, 1968
The main arguments of the Buddhists to reject the Syadvāda or Anekantavāda doctrine are as follows:
(1) The two characters cannot exist together in one reality. Otherwise there would be a self-contradiction of affiirmative and negative characters. Other defects to be mentioned are confusion and commingling that follow self-contradiction.
Dharmakirti is of the view that the Jaina theory of dual character, viz., universal and particular, is so formulated that the character of particularity is relegated to the background and made less significant. He explains this with reference to the famous example of camel and curd. If the particularity which distinguishes camel from curd or vice-versa is not important factor, he says, one may as well eat a camel when he wants to eat curd. He tries by this agrument to demolish the Jaina theory as he understood that curd is not only curd by itself (svarūpena), but also camel is a relative sense (pararupena). According to Dharmakirti, there cannot be a universal character between camel and curd and even if such a character exists, their mutual difference or particularity is all that matters for both identification and use.
sarvasyobhayarüpatve tadviseṣanirākṛteh codito dadhi khadeti kimuṣṭram nābhidhāvati athastyatisayah kaścit yena bhedena vartate sa eva dadhyonyatra nästityanubhayam param1
77
Santiraksita also points out that there would be a commingling (samkarya) and a confusion (sandeha) in the dual nature of reality, the result of which would not be helpful to decide which is general and which is particular :
paraspara svabhāvatve syātsāmānyaviseṣayoh samkaryatattvato nedam dvairupyamupapadyate2
If the general and the particular are regarded as non-different from one and the same thing, how could there by any difference in the nature of these two characters? And being non-different why should it not be regarded as one ?3
1 Pramanavartika, 1.184-5.
2 Tattvasamgraha, 1722. 8 Ibid., 1720-30.