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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
doctrine of liberal pluralism as contrasted with dogmatic monism. To a realist pot exist as it is, independent of the mind, to an idealist, pot has no existence in the world outside. To a nominalist the pot is a sign in the outward world which calls up it image in the mind, to a Buddhist pot is nothing but a continuous stream of changes. So also to Bergson it is a great flux. Perceptionist regard the pot only as a bundle of qualities without any substratum containing them. But to a Spencerian Positivist pot is a vivid idea the causes of which are unknowable. However to the Vedāntins pot is a figment of illusion, a thing of nescience. All these philosophers look at the pot more or less from one dominating point of view, while neglecting the other. The Jaina logicians welcome all the light that comes from different ways of approach and integrates them in one whole in which all these finite traits can cosubsist.2 All philosophical disputes arise out of a confusion of standpoints 3 Even in practical life we find that a man is father in relation to a particular boy, in relation to another boy he is not father, in relation to both the boys taken together he is the father and is not the father, and since both the ideas cannot be conveyed in words at the same time, he may be called indescribable.4 Considering all these standpoints, a marvellous mechanism of Syādvāda or Saptabhangi has been worked out which is an unique organon of knowledge to grasp the manifoldness of reality. When the reality is dynamic and truth is manifold, our task of knowing the truth becomes difficult for there is nothing certain on account of endless complexities of things, and hence the expression of truth
1. Kannomal Jaina : Saptabhangi Naya, 2. Nathmal Tatia: p. 198. 3. S. Radhakrishnan : History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I,
p. 302. 4. Hira Lall Jaina : Jainism, its History, Philosophy and
Religion, From Ramakrishna Centenary Volume I. 5. S. Radhakrishnan : Ibid, p. 302.
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