Book Title: Jaina Ontology
Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Page 182
________________ APPENDIX III 169 (iii) that of identity and difference between a substance and its properties (v) that of identity and difference between a cause and its effect In relation to each of these problems two mutually opposed extreme positions were actually maintained by certain historically evolved schools of Indian philosophy. But the Jaina authors were not so much bound to consider the historicity of a position like that. For convinced of the validity af the basic logic of Anekantavāda they could at once proceed to examine the specific conditions under which this position was tenable. For instance, on the question of change and permanence one extreme position was maintained by the Buddhists and it was done early enough; on the other hand, the other extreme position was maintained by the Advaita Vedāntist and it was done late enough. Yet since very beginning the Jaina authors were placing forward cansiderations that would define the conditions under which these two extreme positions would have been one like that maintained by the Buddhists and the other like that maintained by the Advita Vedāntists. Yet historically speaking the parties in dispute here were the Buddhists on the one hand and the Nyāya--Vaišeşikas (and Mimāṁsakas) on the other. Hence so far as the question of recognising the reality of similarity was concerned the Jainas sided with the Nyāya-Vaiseșikas (and Mimamsakas) as against the Buddhists but they criticised the former themselves for maintaining that the factor reponsible for similarity is something over and above the things similar. Thus this controversy got related to that which was being waged around the question of identity and difference between a substance and its properties. For the Jainas argued that the factor respo. sible for similarity is but a property of the things similar and therefore identical with as well as different from these things, just as each and every property of these things is identical with as wells as different from these things. On the broader question of properties in general the two extreme positions were again those of the Buddhist and the Nyāya-Vaišeşikas, for the former maintained that the properties of a substance are nothing over and above this substance and the latter that they are something over and above it. Here the Jainas actually developed their position in the light of these historically developed positions. The same was the case with the controversy waged around the question of identity and difference between a whole and its part — for here again the Buddhists maintained that a whole is nothing over and above its parts and the Nyaya-Vaiseșikas that it is something over and above them. The question of cause and effect could be viewed in two ways. In one case the parts could be treated as the cause of the whole they go to constitute, and in this case the question of cause and effect would reduce itself to the earlier question of whole and parts. In the other case. an effect could be treated as something immediately following its cause and. J. O...22 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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