Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion

Author(s): Ramjee Singh
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi

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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
Pramāna and Naya represent roughly the absolute and the relative characters of knowledge respectively and taken together, as knowledge is constituent, it becomes non-absolutistic. A closer study of the theory of Pramāṇā is defined as the knowledge of an object in all its aspects and since an object has innumerable characteristics? it implies that if we know all. The universe is an interrelated whole. Nothing:is an isolated phenomenon. Hence, right knowledge of the even one object will lead to the knowledge of the entire universe. This shows that our knowledge has got a relative character. This relativism is realistic. It not only asserts a plurality of determinate truths but also takes each truth to be an indetermination of alternative truths."3 These so many truths are really alternate truths, so it is a mistake of finding one absolute truth or even one cognition of the plurality of truths.
"If knowing is a unity, known is a plurality, the objective category being distinction or togetherness. If finally, knowledge is the object, refers to the known, the known must present an equivalent of this of relation or reference, a relation and its content.”4 Intellectualistic abstractionism has to be given up and we should try to dehumanise the ideal and realise the real. The reality is not a rounded ready made whole or an abstract unity of many definite or determinate aspect but that “the so called unity is after all a manifold being only a name for fundamentally different aspects of truth which do not
1, Nyāyavatāra, V. 29; Sad-daršāna-samuccaya of Haribha
dra, 55 ( with Guwaratna's Comments ), Royal Asiatic
Society, Calcutta, 1905. 2. Acārānga-Sūtra, 13. 4. 122; Pravacana-sāra of Kunda
kunda (Ed., Trans. ), A. Chakravarti, Raichandra Jaina
Shastra Mala, Bombay, 1935, 1. 48-49. 3. Bhattacharya K.C. : His article on "The Jaina Theory of
Anekānta” in Jaina Antiquary, Vol. IX, No. I. 4. lbid, pp. 10-11.