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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
concept is due to the presence of a self-identical universal conjunctionhood, in all of them. But inherence stands in a different position altogether. If inherence were to be many, this would necessitate the postulation of inherence-universal (samavāyatva) in order to account for the identity of conception, as is found to be the case with the individuals belonging to a class. But this hypothesis of one inherence-universal is fraught with grave difficulties on the score of its relation to the individual inherences. The relation of the universal to the particulars is always inherence. And if the inherence-universal were to be related by inherence to its individual members that would make a regressus ad infinitum inevitable. The second inherence connecting the inherence-universal with the individual inherences would itself require a third inherence to connect itself with the universal inherence of which it would be an individual instance. But the same fate awaits the third. Thus an infinite regress makes the hypothesis of a plurality of inherences impossible. But the difficulty does not arise in the case of conjunction, which, being an adjective of the terms, is felt to be different with different terms. So the postulation of a conjunction-universal is called for. And there is no difficulty about the relation of conjunction-universal with the individual conjunctions, as inherence will answer the requirement in the case. Inherence is thus on the sa me footing with the universals. It is one and the same in all its incidence just as the universal is the same in all the members of a class. Nor can it be called a universal, as the condition of plurality of individuals in which a universal inheres is impossible of fulfilment in the case of inherence.1
A number of difficulties has been raised as side-issues regarding inherence by the opponents, which the Vaiśesika feels no difficulty in meeting with convincing arguments. In the first place, it is urged that inherence cannot be a relation either between existents or between non-existents. The latter alternative is impossible as there can be no relation between nonexistent terms. In the former alternative the relation would transpire to be conjunction. The supposition that it holds between an existent and a hitherto non-existent term is equally
1. Vide PKM and NKC. pp. 204-208, 294-296.
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