Jain Theism

Author(s): Hemant Shah
Publisher: Hemant Shah

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Jain Theism
go to as many as seven hunderd or even more. The affirmations or judgements as expressed from any Naya or point of view can never be absolute one, but true only in relation to that point of view or Naya, Thus we find Judgements true from some point of view and false from another in order to be precisely correct, as a safety measure, therefore, each affirmation should be preceded by the phrase" Syāt" which means ‘may be' or 'soine how.' This clearly indicates that the judgement expressed is only relative and not absolute. 3.2.4 Significance of Samgraha Naya
We have already seen that Sargraha Naya generic standpoint takes account of the common aspects only. The discussion presupposes a broad familiarity with the philosophical understanding of Samanya and Visesa - specially with reference to Indian philosophy. By 'Samgraha" we mean a standpoint which takes into account the numerous particularities as one identical aggregated whole a unity, a harmony. Here the particular or special aspect is reconciled to the common feature, When we consider generic view-point or the Samgraha we concentrate upon the generalities. The significance of Samgraha Naya lies in its scope, “The scope of such sāmānya or generality, as
Satta' or pure being, is the widest possible and accordingly it is called the Maha-Samanya or ultimate generality.''27 “Thus we may speak of all individual things from their most general and fundamental aspect as “being”. This according to Jains is the Vedānta way of looking at things.”28
A student of Indian philosophy must be familiar that the concept of universal is nominalistic and conceptualistic in Buddhism while to Naiyāyika it is objective. The Jain conception of universal is a well developed concept evolved from the most eminent logicians of the Jain logic like Samantbhadra, Siddhasena, Akalanka, Vidyānndi and Yashovijayji. Their views, as Prof. S. Mookerji observes in his book 'The Jain philosophy of non-absolutism', have created uniform tradition in subsequent Jain speculations.
While interpreting the position of Samantbhadra, Prof. S. Mookerji writes, “Samantbhadra seems to be quite explicit that all
27. H. S. Bhattacharya- Commentry Of P.N.T. ( 1967) p. 521 28. S. N. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1. (1975) p. 177