Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 178

The Sophisticated Stage 157
sive movements of the world are strung on time which is a process of persistence, an enduring from the past to the present. It is sometimes regarded as a quasi-substance. Matter is conceived in terms of the four well known elements viz. earth, water, fire and air and their ultimate constituents are said to be atomic. The atoms are conceived as viscous or dry: when one is viscous and the other dry, or when the two have different degrees of viscosity and dryness, combination of them takes place and such compounds combine with others.
Anything which has origin, existence and destruction is a substance. A substance (dravya) is possessed of some unchanging essential characters (gunas) and changing modes (paryāyas). Substance and quality are inseparable. Qualities (existence, enjoyability, substantiveness, knowability, specific characters and capability of possessing forms) adhere in substances and they cannot exist by themselves. Experience shows that in all changes there are three elements: (1) that some collocation of qualities appear to remain unchanged; (2) that some new qualities are generated; and (3) that some old qualities are destroyed. The permanent unit is called dhrūva, the accession of new qualities utpāda and the loss of some old qualities vyaya. The nature of a thing in thus neither the absolutely unchangeable, nor the momentary changing qualities or existences, but involves them both. That is why Jainism holds that nothing can be affirmed absolutely, as all affirmations are true only under certain conditions and limitations.
A dravya, by which we generally understand substance, is that which is capable of becoming this or that. The different senses of the word dravya are but different ways of conveying the aforesaid idea. In Jainism the word dravya is used differently. The Tattvārthasūtral divides the nikṣepas into dravya, nāma bhāva, sthāpana, etc., the nayas into dravyārthika and paryāyārthika, and so on. The Bhagavarisūtra? speaks of aspects like dravya, kşetra, kala, bhāva, etc. In other places we come across such expressions as dravyakarma, dravyācārya, etc. In all the cases, however, notwithstanding their functional significance, the term conveys the idea of its capability to become this or that. In Jain metaphysics the word dravya is normally used in the sense of the basic types of entities found in the universe. For example, Jiva, Pudgala, etc. are six dravyas. In Vaiseșika philosophy: the word 11. 5; V, 31.
III, 19. SVS, 1, 1, 15.