Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

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For the Jaina thinkers both the substance and its modes are real. The one without the other is an impossibility. He explains at length the Jaina view of the phenomenal and the noumenal aspects of existence. At this juncture, he contrasts the Jaina position with that of Kant's.
He observes: "In brief, the Jaina position is: First, that right knowledge is the only test or measure on our part of the existence of a reality; secondly, that knowledge is always the knowledge of relations; thirdly, that reality is never out of relations (a particular reality may not be in physical relation with another reality, it may be in the relationship of subject and object, knower and known); and fourthly, that the relations are constantly changing. 'To' be is to be in relation. So when we know a thing, we know the relationssome, if not all, in which it stands to us and to other things. To that extent we know the thing as it is. There are other present relations which we do not know, and there are other possible relations also which we may not know under our present state of development. This residuum of relationships is the noumenal. The task of our research ought to be to fix these unknown relations, and not to go in quest of the phantom 'thing-in-itself."
Virchand Gandhi answers Sankaracharya's criticism of Syadvada in the following words: "The inherence of contrary aspects in a single idea or object seems impossible to the unseen noumenal hectic mind. Sankara, the well-known Vedanta scholar, has fallen into error when he states that the Jaina doctrine should be accepted, because it is being and non-being should, at the same time, belong to one and the same thing, just as observation teaches that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment.
The Jainas do not teach that a thing can be hot and cold at the same moment, but they do teach that a thing cannot be hot absolutely, and cannot be cold absolutely; it is hot under certain
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