New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 149

Universal Concomitance
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on him instead of depending on ourselves. In sensuous cognition one has to depend on the senses, and consequently the absence of contradiction of the function of these senses, which is identical with the cognizer himself, is invariably necessary. The absence of contradiction in the case of agama (scripture) is concerned with another person. This explains the predominant role of reliability of other person in such cases. This is the reason why the expressions, viz. 'freedom from contradiction' and 'freedom from deception' are added as adjuncts of the āpta (reliable person).
Question 2. What is the criterion of aptatva or the reliability of a person? A person may be reliable in respect of a particular subject but may be equally unreliable with reference to another subject. What, then, is the absolute criterion of reliability (āptatva) of the person, when he is both reliable and unreliable, as explained above?
Answer. Reliability is not an exclusive characteristic valid with reference to all subjects and all persons. In other words, it cannot be ascribed to a particular person in all respects or to a particular subject with reference to all persons. Wherever there is absence of contradiction or deception, there is āptatva (reliability) and wherever there is the presence of contradiction and deception there is the absence of āptatva (reliability). In the sphere of abstract reasoning no ordinary person can be considered as a reliable person (āpta) absolutely and unconditionally.
Question 3. The problem of identity needs further illustrations. Its difference from succession also needs a clear exposition by means of illustrations.
Answer. The relation of identity is not the only basis of necessary concomitance or pervasion (vyāpti), but the relation of succession is also such a basis. There is no relation of identity between Sunday and Monday that follows it in succession, nor is Monday produced by Sunday, that is, the relation of causality does not obtain between them. Monday necessarily comes after Sunday and not before. Such immediate sequence (ānantarya) or succession can also form the basis of universal concomitance. By observing an event necessarily taking place immediately after another, the physicist is in a position to arrive at a number of principles governing such succession. If there is an invariable relationship between a succeeding and preceding mode, either can lead to the