New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 53

Axioms of Non-absolutism
45
An intermediate phase of the independent pot again is constantly subject to growth and decay. Therefore the state of the present moment is the own nature while the past and future states are the alien natures. If the existence of the pot is determinable by the past and future moments, exactly in the fashion of the present moment, then all pots-past, present and future-should together be existent at any one moment. The same logic will apply to the nature of non-existence. In other words if a particular nonexistence were determinable by all the past and future nonexistences in the same fashion as the present non-existence is determined by its own nature, the upshot will be that any particular moment of non-existence is a totality of all non-existences-past, present and future. Existence and non-existence must each have its own nature, in the absence of which they would lose their identity.
Again the momentary pot has a good many qualities and modes like colour, taste, smell, form etc. We know its existence by seeing its colour with our eyes, and in this context the colour is the own nature, while taste etc. of which we are not aware at the moment, are the alien nature. Had taste etc. been the own nature like the colour of the pot, visible at the moment, then the former would be of the nature of colour, on account of its being cognised along with the colour by the eye. And as a result the conception of senses, other than the eye, will be a futile imagination.
Epistemologically viewed, the idea of pot consequent upon the usage of the word 'pot' is the own nature (of pot), while the shape of the pot outside is the alien nature.
Consciousness has two aspects(1) The aspect of being a cognition, just like an imageless mirror. (2) The aspect of being possessed of a cognitum, just like a mirror
with an image.
Of these two, the aspect of being possessed of a cognitum is the own nature (of a pot). In other words, in the epistemological situation, the pot qua the cognitum is the own nature while the cognition itself is the alien nature. The criterion is that the point of . focus is the own nature while the other auxiliary conditions are the alien nature. The own nature in its essence is the object on which our cognition is fixed. Otherwise all things would be indetermin- . able. Thus if a pot is considered as nothing other than the cognition itself, then all other things, like a piece of cloth etc., as cognita would be identical with the pot. Exactly similar consequences will