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The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism
change means the cessation of a previous mode or attribute and the coming into being of a new mode. As modes and attributes are identical with the causal stuff in which they occur, the birth and cessation of modes are to be regarded as the birth and cessation of the causal stuff quâ the modes and attributes. That a thing changes means that it has ceased to be what it was and comes to be what it was not. Cessation and birth are thus the invariable concomitants of change and thus should be predicated of the changing stuff. A real then has birth and cessation as its elements and the element of persistence also is to be affirmed as it is the very presupposition of change. The affirmation of origination, cessation and persistence as elements of the constitution of a reality has therefore nothing paradoxical about it. . The three elements are a natural deduction from the reality of change. The Jaina believes in the dynamic nature of reals and in deference to the demands of reason and experience alike, he sums up the three elements mentioned above as the component factors of the constitution of reality. One can avoid this triple characteristic only by the declaration of change as appearance, which is the position of Vedānta. One must offer one's allegiance either to Vedāntic monism or affirm the multiple nature of reality, which is the teaching of Jaina anekāntavāda.
Viewed from the Jaina standpoint a real is a through the infinite variation of its modes at every moment of its being. The continuum is a reality as much as the variation. Thus there is unity as well as multiplicity in perfect harmony. The real viewed as identical with the changing modes is thus coming into being every moment and perishing every moment. That it comes to evolve a new mode implies that the previous mode has ceased to exist. So a real quâ its modes is becoming something new by ceasing to be its old self. The birth of the new is thus the logical concomitant of the death of the old. Let us illustrate it by an example. A self which was feeling unhappy is now feeling happy. Strictly analysed it comes to mean that the unhappy self is no more at once the happy self comes into being. So a real in undergoing change both ceases and comes to be. That it persists through both the acts is evident, since birth and cessation as the concomitants of change are predicable only of a continuity. The affirmation of the three apparently incompatible elements as
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