Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 220

A Comparative Study 199 withdrawal of the particles, which involves the soul's undergoing changes and the like. This would mean that the soul is non-permanent, like the skin or similar substances by which it is impossible to establish its states of bondage and release. If it be said that the soul consists of some permanently remaining parts, it would be impossible to determine which are the permanent and which are the temporary parts. Since the soul is immaterial, it cannot spring from material elements and re-enter the elements. According to the Jain logic itself the soul is of indefinite nature and also the size of the particles and departing is itself indefinite.
In Ramanuja's commentary on the Vedānta Sūtrasi the following is said against Jainism. Contradictory attributes such as existence and non-existence cannot at the same time belong to one thing. Since the substance (dravya) and its qualifying states (paryāyas) are different, the former can not be connected with opposite attributes. Time is only an attribute of substance and not an independent substance, and hence the question of its being and non-being cannot arise. Since Jainism holds everything to be of an ambigious nature, it cannot therefore be said that each of the substances has its own qualifying states and its own nature. If the souls abide in numberless places, each soul having the same size as the body which it animates, then the soul previously abiding in the body of an elephant will not be able to enter in the next stage of its existence into the body of an ant. This difficulty cannot be evaded by the assumption of the soul assuming a different condition through contraction or dilation The final size of the soul, i.e. the size it has in the state of its release, is considered in Jainism as permanent. From this, it follows that the ultimate size is the true essential size of the soul.
A subjectwise comparative study of the systems
In view of what we have discussed in the preceding sections, we are now in a position to evaluate the Jain standpoint in terms of a subjectwise comparative analysis of the contents of different philosophical systems of India. It is possible to divide Indian philosophical systems into two main classes-idealistic and non-idealistic. To the former class belong the Advaita Vedānta and the Mādhyamika and Yogäcara schools of Buddhism which treat the external perceptible world and everything that is apprehended by the empirical organs
211, 2, 31-35.