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An Examination of Brahma-Sotra ( II. 2. 33 )
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he recognises substance and attributes as distincts but he says that asti and nasti cannot be predicated of the same thing from the Dravya point of view alone?, i.e., the same substance cannot have the two contradictory predicates. Inspite of this, Ramanuja seems to be very much prejudiced against the Jaina theory when he asks : How can we say that the same thing is and is not at the same time? However, Rāmanuja forgets that if we describe a thing both from the standpoint of underlying substance ( dravya ) and its modifications ( paryaya ), we shall have no such difficulty. We meet with these difficulties because we prefer to live in the world of empty abstractions. In a sense, the Vedantic metaphysics of Ramanuja is the doctrine of one and many. It is one when we talk of the one Absolute Brahman, it is many when we know about the multiple jivas and the multiverse. And when reality is one and many at the same time, Vedantism itself becomes a sufficient argument in favour of Syadvāda. How does the Absolute, which is one and only one, become the all ? How can the one Brahman consist of both conscious (cit) and unconscious (acit ) elements? If these contradictions can be reconciled by Ramanuja, he should not find fault with the very logical calculus of reconciliation adopted by the Jaina doctrine. Thus Ramanuja's attempt to discover contradictions in Syadvada destroys the entire edifice of his metaphysics itself. Anekantavāda pleads for soberness and loyalty to experience which discards absolutism. The dual nature of things is proved by a reduction-ad-absurdum of the opposite views. This does not mean any offence to the canons of logic. The concept of pure logic which is prior to and absolutely independent of experience is dangerous. “Logic is to systematize and rationalize what experience offers"?, In one 1. Khušala Candra, Vedanta Sūtra Ke Vyakhyakára Aur
Saptabhangi', in ‘Jaina Darśana', Year I, Number 1. 2. Mookerjee, S. : The Jaina Philosophy of Absolutism (Cal
cutta, 1944), p. 78. "To allow logic to work in Yacuo and to diçate terms to
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