Jaina Ontology

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

Page 23

JAINA ONTOLOGY
camp the first spokesman of the tendency of this age is Siddhasena (whose treatment of problems is semi-Agamic), the second Mallavadi (whose treat. ment of problems is purely logical); likewise, in the Digambara camp the first spokesman of the tendency of this age is Kundakunda (whose treatment of problems is semi-Agamic), the second Samantabhadra (whose treatment of problems is purely logical). A comparative study of Siddhasena and Mallavādī on one hand and Kundakunda and Samantabhadra on the other will convince any one that the former couple has a much grasp of problems than the latter; (moreover, the former couple receives powerful reinforcement from Jinabhadra who came after Mallavādī but was a SemiAgamic author like Siddhasena). But in the case of the authors that follow them the roles are just reversed-that is to say, in the case of those later authors it is the Digambaras who evince a deeper grasp of problems. Thus in the Svetambara camp Mallavadi (along with Simhasuri whose commentary on Mallavādi's Nayacakra is our only means for getting at this text) is followed first by Haribhadra and then by a long lull, while in the Digambara camp Samantabhadra is followed by a galaxy of great names like Akalanka, Vidyananda, Prabhācandra. By the time of Prabhacandra the old situation returns back, for he is the last great author belonging to the Digambara camp while the Svetambara camp yet produces three giants, viz. Abhayadeva, the author of Sanmatitarkaṇikā, Vādideva, the author of Syādvadaratnakara and Yasovijaya the last and the most acute of Jaina philosophers. Yasovijaya belonged to the 18th Century and after him begins the modern age whose problems are all its own. In the Age of Logic itself some of Agamic activity also continued-in both the Ŝvetämbara and Digambara camps. Thus in the Svatambra camp authors like Šilanka, Abhayadeva and Malayagiri wrote Sanskrit commentaries on Agamic texts while those like Śivašarmasuri and Candrarşi wrote works on Karma-doctrine; similarly, in the Digambara camp Yativṛṣabha wrote in Prakrit a commentary on Kaṣāyaprabhṛta (a minor Karma text of Umasvati's age) while Virasena wrote in Prakrit occasionally mixed with Sanskrit a commentary on Satkhaṇḍāgama and one on Kaṣāyaprabhṛta. But let us for the moment ignore Agamic activity of the Age of Logic and concentrate our attention on what undoubtedly is specific activity of this age.
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Chief Activities of the Age of Logic :
The chief endeavour of the authors of the Age of Logic was to demonstrate the validity of Anekantavāda, and in this connection they whould examine and find fault with the rival views of the Brahmanical philosophers like Sankhya, Nyaya-Vaiseṣika, Mimamsaka, Vedānti on the one hand and the Buddhist philosophers like Vaibhaṣika, Sautrāntika, Vijñānavādī, Sunyavādī on the other. The three distinct phases of this type of activity are found culminated in the writings of Mallavadi (belonging to the 5th century A.D.),