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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
satisfactory explanation of reality, he will have no alternative to the acceptance of diversity which presupposes the reality of the two types of non-existence mentioned above. So far as the Sankhya who postulates twenty-five ontological principles and the materialist who believes in the variety of matter are concerned, the denial of non-existence inevitably lands them in a morass of self-contradiction. And as regards the Buddhist idealist, he too cannot deny the reality of numerical difference. The idealist denies the objectivity of the content of awareness apart from the act of awareness of which it is only a part; or to be precise, the content is identical with awareness. The content of awareness is however felt to be distinct from awareness. Awareness is always of something and not purely itself so far at least as the psychology of cognitive processes testifies. But this distinction of awareness from its content, whatever be the ontological status of the latter,1 can be accounted for only on assumption of numerical difference. Awareness is a fact, which has an individuality of its own distinct from that of the content and also from that of another awareness. This is intelligible only if the individuality in question is regarded as possessed of a double facet, viz., the capacity to assert its existence, which is the aspect of self-affirmation, and the capacity to exclude itself from others, which is the aspect of negation. The postulation of affirmative-cum-negative nature of a real is thus an inescapable conclusion even for the Buddhist idealist.
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As regards the Buddhist who believes in the identity of a cognition, having a diversified content, for example, of a variegated carpet, he too will have to admit that the content is a diversity in unity. The patch of blue and the patch of red in a variegated carpet are different in identity. If these were not numerically different just as the blue is not different from itself, there would be one unvaried content. But the conclusion cannot be accepted by the Buddhist, as it takes away all logic from his assertion of the identity of the cognition in spite of the diversity
1. The Buddhist holds that the polarization of consciousness into subject and object is due to nescience. Whether the status of the content is co-ordinate with that of consciousness is a problem which is undecided more .or less.
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