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Non-absolutistic Heritage of Bhagavana Mahavira 197
and post non-existence as part of a real leads to the impossibility of the law of causation and the consequential impossibility of all theoretical and practical activity. Similarly, the denial of non-existence of mutual identity (numerical difference) and absolute non-existence is also impossible. There plurality presupposes that the identity of one is not the identity of another. If there is no difference, there will be no distinction, hence no independence between the subject and the object. If there is the negation of identity, there is worse confusion. Hence, the nature of reality is not exclusive or extremistic. It is existent-cum-non-existent; identity-cumdifference, one-in-many. This is seeing both the sides, the obverse and the reverse of the thing. Similarly we can think of the universal and the particular. The world of reals is not only plurality but also unity. But the oneness is not secured at the sacrifice of the many, nor are the many left in unsocial indifference.1 As regards relations, no relation is meaningful if there is pure identity and no relation is possible between two terms which are absolutely independent and different, hence relation is neither a case of unification nor mutual dependence. Relation has no status outside the terms. Hence, there is only one alternative to treat relation in the sense of identity-in-difference as an ontological truth, not merely infernable2, but also as an indubitably perceptual fact.3 Lastly, causal efficiency (Arthakriyākāritvam) is
1. Mukherjee, S.: Ibid, p. 302.
2. Prameya-kamala-martanda of Prabhacandra (ed.) M. K. Jaina (Bombay, 1941), 2nd edition, p. 514.
3. Ibid, p. 514; According to Y. J. Padmarajiah, the Jaina view of relation between the two extremes of Vedanta and Nyaya corresponds, in some essentials, to the views of contemporary westerners like De Witt Parker, "The Theory of Relations, The Self and Nature (Cambridge, 1917) ch. IX; William James, "The Theory and its Relations", The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
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