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
continued without any reorientation. It was made a permanent feature of Jaina epistemological thinking by Äcārya Akalanka who like the Buddhist Dignaga, can be considered as the founder of Jaina logic.
Anekānta: the Synthesizer of Philosophical Systems
The fourth important achievement of the philosophical period consisted in a synthetic view of the divergent schools of philosophy and the development and extensive employment of the anekanta dialectic for such synthesis.
The two important questions of the philosophical debate since the times of the Upanişads were: 1. Is it possible to know the absolute truth, the truth in its
completeness? 2. Is it possible to give it a verbal expression and exposition?
The different philosophies have made out different solutions to these perennial issues of philosophy. The Jaina thinkers also have presented their own solution. The first of these questions was answered by them through their epistemological critique, while the answer to the second they sought to give through their doctrine of anekānta.
It is the omniscient jina who can know the truth in its completeness. His knowledge is absolutely without any kind of veil over it. This explains why such knowledge has no obstruction or hindrance. The non-omniscient cannot know the truth in its fullness, because the knowledge of such person is imperfect, being a mixture of gnosis and nescience. With the acknowledgement of the gnosis of the non-omniscient, we simultaneously acknowledge his nescience also. In the covered state of consciousness there are truth and untruth entwined in one. It is only the omniscient whom we can designate as having perfect knowledge. The expression 'kevalin' (omniscient) can also be explained as one who is possessed of knowledge alone and nothing else. He is pure knowledge, absolutely free from nescience. In point of knowledge all persons other than the omniscient are possessed of gnosis as well as nescience. This acceptance of the co-existence of gnosis and nescience implies that the truth in its completeness can be known only by the omniscient and not by anybody else.
The real has two facets--the substance and the mode. The