Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 14

152
JAIN JOURNAL
(b) Alokākāśa is the abode of the liberated above all worlds (lokas)
or mundane beings. Here Akāsa implies that whence there is no return.
The Jaina gymnosophits are also cited for arrangement which enumerates 6 substances (dravya) as constituting the world, viz., :
1. Jīva, the soul.
II. Dharma, virtue ; a particular substance pervading the world and causing soul's ascent.
III. Adharma, vice pervading the world and causing the soul's continuance with body.
IV. Pudgala, matter ; substance having colour, odour, savour, and tactility; as wind, fire, water and earth, either atoms, or aggregates of atoms ; individual body, collective worlds, etc.
V. Kāla, time ; a particular substance, which is practically treated, as past, present and future.
6. Akāša, a region, one and infinite.
To reconcile the concurrence of opposite qualities in the same subject at different times, and in different substances at the same time, the Jainas assume seven cases deemed by them opposite for obviating the difficulty (bhanga, naya) : 1st. May be, it is (some how, in some measure, it is so); 2nd. May be, it is not ; 3rd. May be it is, it is not (successively); 4th. May be, it is not predicable ; (opposite qualities co-existing) ; 5th. The first and fourth of these taken together ; May be it is, and yet not predicable ; 6th. The second and fourth combind ; May be it is not and not predicable ; 7th. The Third (or the first and second) and the fourth united : May be it is and it is not, and not predicable.
This notion is selected for confutation by the Vedantins to show the futility of the Jaina doctrine. “It is”, they observe, “doubt or surmise, not certainty nor knowledge. Opposite qualities cannot co-exist in the same subject. Predicament are not unpredicable : they are not to be affirmed if not affirmable : but they either do exist or do not ; and if they do, they are to be affirmed : to say that a thing is and is not, is as incoherent as a madman's talk or an idiots babble.”
6 Ramanuja on Br. Sutra. & Sankara on Br. Sutra, 2.2, 6 (s.33).