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CHAPTER VIII
Y THE NYAYA CONCEPTION OF UNIVERSALS
We have seen that relations are real and all relations are ultimately reducible to identity in difference. That things are related with one another means that they are identical in respect of a common nature and different in respect of specific individuality, which distinguishes each from the rest. It is relation which introduces order and coherence into the world. If thing were absolutely distinct and discrete with no underlying nexus among them, they would all fall apart, and we could not think of them together as comprised into a system. Of course, the Buddhist fluxist does not believe in objective relations, and according to him the order and connection, that are conceived to prevail in the world of our experience, are subjective impositions or ideal constructions. But this position has been repudiated by the Jaina, the Naiyāyika and other realists on the ground that conceptual thought is as veridical as our perceptual intuition. We have discussed the problem threadbare in the foregoing chapters and we do not think any useful purpose will be served by embarking upon the same discourse again. But a problem naturally arises in connection with our discussion of relations. Relations, we have seen, are possible between terms which share in common an identity of being in spite of their diversity and difference of nature in respect of other characteristics. But what is this identity ? The problem pertinently arises in connection with groups of individuals which are put under definite classconcepts. Take, for instance, the class of individuals known as men. Now, individual men are numerically different from one another, just as they are different from cows and horses. But in spite of their numerical difference all individuals fall under a class, viz., man, and not only are they synthesized under a common category, but as a whole class the individuals are distinguished from other classes, viz., horses and cows. What is the ground of this classification and differentiation of groups? Is it merely due to a conceptual necessity - the necessity of human
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