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ABSOLUTISM Vs. NON-ABSOLUTISM
I do not want to indulge here in this age-old controversy between relativism and absolutism. I, just, only want to point out that though it is very relevant to the subject-matter of the present work, yet it does not pose an insoluble problem connected with Jaina theory of omniscience, with which I am particularly concerned. In fact, the Jaina theory of relativism does not go against the Jaina theory of omniscience because it seems to me that relativism, according to Jaina philosophy, applies to our knowledge of reality in virtue of the fact that we i.e., lay man, approach reality only from this or that point of view. Therefore, if it is made possible to approach reality from all possible points of view i.e., from no-one - particular-point-of-view, then the resulting knowledge will not be vitiated by relativism. It seems to me that Sarvajñatā or omniscience is knowledge of this kind and that is why Sarvajñatā can be reconciled with Syādvāda or Anekāntavāda. This requires a fuller treatment that I have done elsewhere."
1 Please refer to my article "The Nature of Unconditionality in Syād
vada (read before the Indian Philosophical Congress in 1956 at Nagpur). This has subsequently been published in many journals Jaina Antiquary (Arrah, Vol. 22 No. 1, 1965; Malāvīra Smārikā, Jaipur, 1964) etc. I have tried to pose a problem: If non-absolutism is absolute, it is not universal, since there is one real which is absolute, and if non-absolutism is itself non-absolute, it is not an absolute and universal fact. So "tossed between the two horns of the dilemma nonabsolutism simply evaporates" (S. Mookerjee, The Jaina Philosophy of Non-absolutism, p. 169 ). Complete Judgement (sakaladeša) is the object of valid knowledge (pramı?2) and Incomplete Judgement (vikaladeśa) is the object of aspectal knowledge (Naya) --Pujyapāda, Saryārtha Siddhi, IV. 45. Hence the "non-absolute is constituted of the absolute as its elements and as such would not be possible if there were no absolutes (S. Mookerjee, Ibid., p. 171).
Further, the unconditionality in the statement "all statements are conditional” is quite different from the normal meaning of uncondi. tionality. This is like the idea contained in the passages, 'I do not know myself', where there is no contradiction between 'knowledge' and 'ignorance', or in the sentence, 'I am undecided', where there is at least one decision, that is 'I am undecided'. Similarly, the categoricality behind
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