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Chapter IX
CHAPTER IX WAY THE JAINA CONCEPTION OF UNIVERSALS
- In the foregoing chapter we have given an elaborate evaluation of the nominalistic and conceptualistic positions of the Buddhist critics of objective universals from the point of view of the Naiyāyika realist. We now address ourselves to the Jaina theory of universals. We must confess that the Jaina conception of universals, as represented by such eminent writers as Jinabhadra, Akalanka and Vidyanandi, down to Yaśovijaya Sūri, has been systematically given a turn which smacks of profound influence by the Buddhist philosophers. The first Jaina writer, who has given an elaborate consideration to the problem of universals, is undoubtedly Samantabhadra, the author of the Aptamimāmsā, which has been commented upon by Akalanka, Vidyanandi and Yaśovijaya. According to these commentators, whose views have created a uniform tradition in subsequent Jaina speculations, the universal is rather a qualitative aspect of the individuals numerically different in different individuals. The unity of universals is set forth as more or less a conceptual figment, which they seek to equate with the concept of similarity. Individuals belonging to a class are similar to one another and the similarity, though numerically different, is accorded the status of the universal. Thus the universal quâ similarity is numerically different and discrete in different individuals and so the universal as a unitive self-identical principle is asserted to be an ontological fiction. We postpone an elaborate discussion of this Jaina reorientation of the Buddhistic conception of universals for the present, which will be given in its proper place later on. We now propose to interpret the position of Samantabhadra without allowing ourselves to be influenced by the views of the commentators.
Samantabhadra seems to be quite explicit that all entities are unified by one common existence running through them all. That things are different numerically and qualitatively from one another is undeniable. But this numerical difference does not cancel their unity in respect of the universal characteristic, viz., existence.
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