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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
different from one another. So they cannot be even ideally thought to be identical. Nor can there be ideal identification of their attributes, since the Buddhist does not believe in an attribute different from its substrate. The admission of such an attribute, different from substrates, would, on the contrary, amount to the affirmation of the universal.
It has been supposed that the individuals, in spite of their mutual difference, could give rise to an identical concept. The capacity of one individual for producing such a concept is not open to question. It is not necessary that a concept should be grounded in one identical objective universal. It is found that the different universals, e.g., a horse-universal or a cow-universal, are so many individuals without sharing a common universal. But nevertheless these individual universals are all referred to by a common concept and a name, viz., universal. So the universal may be only a conceptual identity and not an ontological principle. The realist also cannot point to the existence of an obiective universal as comprising the different individual universals. If the identical conception and linguistic expression in this case may be allowed as legitimate the Buddhist also may with equal propriety and cogency offer the same solution in the case of the individuals. 1
But the Naiyāyika does not think the two cases to be analogous. If the unitive concepts were not determined and conditioned by objective unitive principles and the discrete particulars could account for the former, then how could it be denied that one single principle might give rise to the idea of a plurality of individuals which is the position of the Vedāntist. The appeal to natural capacity is equally available in both the cases. If particulars may be supposed to possess the capacity for generating concepts of unity, a unitary principle also may with equal logical propriety be thought to yield the knowledge of a plurality of particulars. If it be contended that the admission of such a possibility would make the knowledge of plurality unaccountable or unconditional, then the Buddhist hypothesis also would make the idea of unity unfounded and unintelligible. If the
1. ekapratyavamaríasya hetutyad dhir abhedini, ekadhi-hetubhāvena vyaktinām apy abhinnatā. PV.
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