Jain Journal 1998 04

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

Page 25

THE CONCEPTION OF DRAVYAS IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY *
KAMAL CHAND SOGANI
Jainism takes experience as its guide and resolves the whole of the universe of being into two everlasting, uncreated, co-existing, but independent categories of Jiva and Ajiva. The Ajiva is further classified into pudgala (matter), Dharma (principle of motion), Adharma (principle of rest), Akāsa (space) and Kāla (time). Hence reality is dualistic as well as pluralistic. But according to the Jaina plurality, though an ontological fact, entails unity also, if it is considered from the synthetic and objective point of view of one existence. According to Kundakunda, in spite of the unique characteristics possessed by the different substances (Dravyas) existence has been regarded as an all-comprising characteristics of reality which ends all distinctions.' The Kärttikeyānuprekṣā recognises that all substances are one from the stand-point of substance, while they are distinct and separate from their characteristic differences.2 Samantabhadra also endorses this view by affirming that in view of the conception of one universal existence all are one, but from the point of view of substances distinctions arise.3 Padmaprabhamaladharīdeva pronounces that a 'Mahāsatta' pervades all the things in their entiriety, but it is always associated with 'Aväntarasatta' which pervades only the particular objects. In a similar vein, Amṛtacandra speaks of the two types of Satta, namely, 'Svarupasatta' and 'Sadrasyasatta.' The latter is the same as 'Samanyasatta;5 In his Saptabhangitarangnini Vimaladasa discusses the problem of unity and plurality of existence in detail, and concludes that both the postulation of existential identity and the articulation of differences from the stand-point of different substance are logically justifiable. Thus Jainism gives credence to the recognition of existential oneness but not exclusively, since it is always bound up with plurality. This is quite consistent with the Anekantātmaka view
*
Reprinted from C. L. Jain's Felicitation Volume.
1. Prava. comm. Amrta. 11-5
2. Kartti. 236
3. Aptamimansa-34
4. Niyama. comm. Padmaprabha. 34
5. Prava. comm. Amrta. II, 3, 5,
6. Saptabhangitarangini p. 78.