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Non-absolutism and Jaina View of Darsana
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sophy accepts Nyāya or Logic as the necessary methodology of Philosophy. The importance of Logic is reflected in the fact that Logic or Nyaya is identified with one of the important systems of Indian Philosophy, attributed to Gotama. Hegel in the west had gone further and had identified not only logic with Philosophy but also with reality. This sort of paralogism is however not accepted by the Indian thinkers. Even Gotama regards reason as the means not the end. The technical Nyaya word for philosophy called 'Anvikşa' means “investigation, since it consists in the reviewing (anuvikşaņa ) of a thing previously apprehended by perception and verbal testimony."I Whatever is established is true. The purpose of the Nyāya is critical examination of the objects of knowledge by means of logical proof. Every Science is a Nyaya, which means literally going into a subject. Hence, it is sometimes called Tarka-vidya or Váda-vidya ( science of debate and discussion ), The Jainas also have a long and rich tradition of their own logic beginning from the Āgamas, 3 Samantabhadra and Siddhasena, Akaladka and Hemacandra, Manikyanandi and Vidyananda, Abhayadeva, Devendra Sīri, Vadiraja, Dharmabhūşaņa, Anantavīrya, Yaśovijaya are some of the most important logicians of the Jaina tradition. It means that logic and life go together. Neither logic is unconnected with life nor life is a verse to logic.
However, there are two additional senses in which Philosophy is used in Jainism, which are peculiar to its own. In one of these senses, philosophy stands for faith (Sraddhan ) of which we find mention in the second verse of Tattvārtha-sūtra (1. 2. ). Infact, here we get the definition of Samyak-darśana which means conviction in the knowledge of things ascertained as they are. Tattva means 'thatness' and Artha is that which is ascertained, hence tattvärtha means ascertainment of 'that
1. Nyaya-bhasya, I. 1. 1. 2. Ibid. 3. Şat-khandagama, V. 5. 51; Sthánānga-sūtra, pp. 309-310.
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