Jaina Ontology

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 19

JAINA ONTOLOGY
answered in various ways. But the simple fact is that the doctrine of nine tattvas, viz. Umāsvāti's seven tattvas plus punya and papa did in a relatively less adequate manner precisely the same thing as was done in a relatively more adequate manner by the doctrine of seven tattvas. As a matter of fact there was also a less adequate version of the doctrine of Mokşamārga, for there were people who would submit that not darśana, jñāna and caritra alone but they along with tapa (penance) constitute Mokşamārga. Both the doctrine of nine tattvas and the doctrine of quadruple Mokşamārga are maintained in the Uttaradhyayana chapter 28 which cannot be very old precisely because it broadly shares Umāsvāti's pattern of thinking and not on these two questions alone). Of course, Umāsvāti was not the originator of his pattern of thinking-though the possibility is not ruled out that the replacement of the doctrine of nine taltvas by that of seven was his contribution. What happened is that Umāsvāti belonged to an age in which the Jaina theoreticians were making new experiment in the field of methodology --if not also in that of thought-content. This becomes still inore clear when we examine the questions taken up by Umāsvati after those preliminary ones are disposed of. Umāsvātion Anuyogadvāra, Naya, Pramāņa :
In one aphorism Umāsvāti says that things (e. g. the seven tattvas) have to be posited by way nāma (name), sthapana (configuration), dravya (formative material) and bhāva (essential form), in the second that they have to be understood by means of pramāņas (instruments of valid cognition) and nayas (expressions of partial truths), in the third that they have to be understood in terms of nirdesa (reference), svāmitva (ownership), sādhana (instrument), adhikarana (location) sthiti (duration) and vidhāna (sub-classification), in the fourth that they have to be understood in terms of sat (being), sankhyā (number), kşetra (place), sparsa (field of touch), kāla (time), antara (interval), bhāva (mode) and alpabahutva (relative numerical strength); immediately afterwards he devotes twenty five aphorisms to a treatment of pramanas and two to that of nayas. Through all this Umāsvati poses three problems with which the Jaina theoreticians of his age were seeking to grapple, viz. the problem of anuyogadvāras (points of investigation), the problem of nayas, the problem of pramānas. The problem of anuyogadvāras was in essence the problem of formulating a definite series of questions that can be readily made use of in connection with all sorts of investigations. The Jaina theoreticians must have become aware of this problem as a result of their experience in the field of investigating matters, for they must have noted that the questions they posed in connection with one investigation had a tendency to recur in connection with other investigations. Evidences are available to the effect that all the three lists of anu yogadvāras drawn up by Umāsvāti were actually in use in his times the list containing năma, sthāpanā, dravya and bhāva was most popular and had even a special name viz. Niksepa given to it), but what is noteworthy is that none