Jaina Logic

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Raja Krisen Jain Charitable Trust New Delhi

Page 32

Ametaala and Nayarada
spontaneous feature. Abhayadeva develops the concepts of manifoldness of space as a polemic against the Naiyāyika view of space as one and partless. The souls are individual centres of experience. Like the Leibnizian monads the soul mirrors the entire universe within itself as a unique centre of experience. The universe it mirrors is infinitely complex; and its experimental powers must be manifold commensurate with the complexity of the experienced universe " *.
In the Adga literature of the Jainas the doctrine of Anekanta was briefly and incidentally discussed. But in the commentaries of the Jaina scriptures written in Prakrit it has received greater attention. But when the Sanskrit language found a place in the Jaina literature, it occupied an important position. The commentary on the Tattvārthaso tra of Umāsvati gives an exhaustive description of the problem. Later, a systematic exposition of the doctrine was given by Jaina scholars like Samantabhadra, Siddhasena Divakara, Mallavādi, Pdjyapāda, Akalalanka, Vidyānandi and others.
The Anekānta view does imply the principles of reciprocity and interaction among the reals of the universe, as given by Kant, although this principle is more implied than expressly stated in Jainism.
In Kantianism, as in Jainism, the principle of reciprocity goes beyond the 'coexistance' or the inter-relatedness of the substances and explains the dynamical community' among them." But the Jaina is a thorough-going realist. Anekantavada is a theory of reality which asserts the manifoldness and complexity of the real. In apprehending the complexity of the universe, it has crystallised itself into the two-fold dialectic of Nayavada and Syadvada, and they are complementary processes
28. Padmarajah (Y. J.) Jaina Theories of Reality and Knowlodge pp. 283. 29. Ibid. pp. 303.