Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 216

A Comparative Study 195
the Jains hold that it consists of two parts Loka and Āloka.
The first four bhūtas, i.e. earth, etc. are conceived in two varieties, eternal and non-eternal. By the eternal variety of earth, etc. is meant their atoms while by the non-eternal variety the products of these atoms. Matter or Pudgala of the Jains is also of the nature of compounds of atoms. The qualities of touch, taste, smell and colour by which the Pudgala is characterised are possessed by atoms and also by their products. In the Nyaya-Vaišeṣika view, all the atoms are not homogeneous in quality. For example, earth atoms are qualitatively different from the water atoms, etc., the water atoms from the earth atoms etc., and so on. This is one of the important points on which the Nyaya-Vaiśeşika atomism differs from that of the Jains who conceive all the atoms as homogeneous in quality.
Guna or quality is recognised in the Nyaya-Vaiśeṣika as a distinct category of reals. In Jainism, Guna is the essential character of the substance. A substance is possessed of some unchanging essential characters (Gunas) as well as changing modes (Paryaya).1 In the Nyaya-Vaiseṣika, the Gunas are conceived as inhered in substance and dependent upon substance. At the same time they are also conceived as distinct from substance, because they can by themselves be known and are thus independent realities. Karma or actions in the NyāyaVaiśeşika, like the Guņas, are conceived as inhering in the substance, but they are also understood as independent realities. Here action has been equated with motion of which five types are enumerated. This reminds us of the Jain conception of dharma and adharma, conceived as the principle of motion and rest. The Samanya or universality of the Nyāya-Vaiseṣika is equivalent to Jāti and is understood to stand for a generic feature, while Viseșa or particularity is conceived as the differentia of impartite things. The Jain classification of the living and non-living beings follows these principles, but they are not separately treated in Jainism. The same holds good in the case of Samavaya or inherence.
The Jains are advocates of the self-revelatory character of cognition. Each cognition whether acquired through perception, inference or testimony notices its own nature by way of direct observation while it is called 'inferential,' 'verbal,' etc., owing to the nature of the object grasped. The Nyaya-Vaiseṣikas regard cognition not as selfrevelatory in the sense of being perceptually cognizable by something
1TTDS, V, 38.