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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
theless Rāmānuja is as much against Bhāskara and Yādava as he is against Sankara. The following are the notable points of Rāmānuja's criticism against Bhāskara and Yādava :
In the first place, the Bhāskarīya and Yādaviya thesis of reality as simultaneous distinction and non-distinction (bhedābheda or bhinnābhinna) is, as just noticed, self-contradictory. This is believed to be so on the ground that distinction and non-distinction cannot co-exist as they do in the bhedābheda philosophy, after the manner of Jainism. In brief, the bhedābheda thesis represents an effort to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Secondly, if in order to escape from the above difficulty, Bhāskara and Yādava seek to affirm that non-distinction, or identity, is genus and distinction, or difference, is species, and that both genus and species constitute the two aspects of everything, then it is held that they tend to divide the indivisible into two compartments. Further, this attitude on the part of bhedābhedavadins will, it is contended, not with any convincing reason on the side of Rāmānuja, lead to a situation in which difference will tend to be more primary. If true, as Rāmānuja believes it to be, this primacy of difference over identity will, of course, militate against the accepted thesis of a co-ordinate scheme of identity-in-difference.
Thirdly, if, on the contrary, bhedābhedavādins declare that the two elements of distinction (bhinna) and non
reinterpretation of bhedabheda". Identity-in-difference, P. T. Raju, The New Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, Nos. 1-6, 1939, pp. 321-322. See also p. 323 of the same article and his idealistic Thought in India (London, 1953), p. 154.
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