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Concluding Observations providing the nearest equivalent of philosophy. The presupposition clearly was that the concept of darsana is indicative not merely of areas of overlap between western and Indian approaches to philosophy but also of the distinctive features of the latter. The implication further was that a reference to the Indian vicwpoint (and the Jaina perspective as reflective of it) should not be understood as pointing to a totally different approach.
In fact the importance accorded to the fallcr idca has been highlightcd in this study by explicitly considering those ideas which are usually recounted as the hallmarks of a philosophic approach, - the ideas of empirical observation, rational analysis and "system-building". To express the idea slightly differently, the passage of thought has bcen from the familiar to the unfamiliar in the world of philosophy. Starting with the well-known ideas regarding philosophy as is understood in the west, we went into an exploration of the not so well-known aspects of the Indian approach as resiccicd in thc Jaina tradition.
It needs to be reiterated here that our reference to the western idea of philosophy even while considering a specific viewpoint within the Indian tradition was born out of the consideration that philosophy is a westcrn word, rather than looking upon the western idea as providing a model for philosophising. Furthermore, thc fact that the tradition of philosophy in India has had a parallel cxistence (though not a parallel pattern of growth) would signify that understanding the Indian conccpLion of philosophy (of which the Jaina vicw represents an incxtricable strand) entails a comprehension of aspects of it which stand out distinctly in addition to those which are comparable. It was for this reason that the concept of darśana was subjccicd 10 a thrcc-fold analysis as a prelude to delineating the Jaina vicw. Thc idca of philosophy as being critically directed toward evaluating the claims of reason was pointed out as a distinctive characteristic in this regard.
Our suggestion was that Jainisin as mctaphilosophy is casily discemible from the idea of criticism implicit in the concept of darsana. As such, the Jaina view may be visualised as an explicit articulation of the need for criticism in philosophy. All the same, no rigid dichotomy between the subject matter and methods of critical inquiry even would be warranted, we maintained.
The idea of the complex Rcal as the subject-maller of philosophy espoused in the Jaina tradition was then proposed as the basis of the
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