New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

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New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
1. The Jaina philosopher, as an exponent of the doctrine of permanence through change (pariņāmi-nityavādi), has proposed the universal concomitance of a real with the trio of origination, cessation and continuity, that is, a real, according to him, is both permanent and impermanent.
2. The Buddhists, on the other hand, in support of their doctrine of momentariness, trave asserted that what is real is necessarily momentary, that is, the rcalis absolutely impermanent.
3. The Nyāva-Vaišesika school considers some substances as permanent and others as impermanent, and consequently their view of universal concomitance is quite different from those of the above-mentioned schools.
From these examples it easily follows that in spite of consensus about the basis (co-occurrence or occurrence in succession) of the ascertainment of necessary concomitance the results are divergent. The reason appears to be that the different schools do not agree on the nature of subtle metaphysical truths. This doctrinal divergence is responsible for the diversity of the element of necessity in concomitance viewed by the different schools. It may be that, with the discovery of new secret truths, the universally-accepted concomitances would change and the principles governing them may stand refuted.
At the metaphysical level there are fundamental differences among philosophers about the capacity of knowledge. Kumārila, the great Mimämsist, for instance, does not believe in supersensory perception when he asserts that whatever super-excellence is found in the capacity of knowledge, does not transcend the prescribed limit: a sense organ can perceive a thing at a distance or a thing that is rotle; but this perception does not transcend its own sphere of activity; the ear can never see the colour nor can the eye hear the sound.?
But this is not endorsed by the Jaina thinkers, who believe that on the inanifestation of the power of joint perception of the sense data (sambhinnasrotopalabdhi) the specific and restricted power of the senses comes to an end. And consequently any sense-organ can perform the function of any other sense-organ. For instance, one can see, hear or touch by the sense-organ of eye. This has been confirmed also by modern science, because in the physical science