New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 86

78 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
The relativism of Heraclitus is based on fluxism. But the basis of relativism of the Jaina philosopher is quite different, according to whom the nomentariness is as much dependent on permanence as the latter is dependent on the former. Momentariness and permanence both together constitute the nature of the real. They do not occur in succession but are co-existent and inseparable. Change or momentariness is only one aspect of the thing and is meaningless without its co-ordinate, viz. the permanence. Relativity, in fact, is understandable on the inter-dependence of the two aspects, viz. momentariness and permanence, in the absence of which it is unthinkable. It is only on the simultaneous existence of the two contrary aspects or attributes that relativity acquires a meaning.
Šri Aurobindo thinks that Heraclitus seems to recognise the inextricable unity of the eternal and the transitory, that which is for ever and yet seems to exist only in this strife and change which is a continual dying.
If this estimate is acceptable, the philosophy of Heraclitus would be nearer to the Jaina standpoint. But even then the Jaina philosopher would disagree because the transitoriness and eternality are co-ordinate factors, neither being sub-ordinate to the other, as Sri Aurobindo or the Vedāntists would like to believe. Acārya Amộtacandra has brought out the equipollence of the two contrary attributes by the examples of churning by a milkmaid, who moves her left and right arm alternately in opposite directions to make butter, thus exercising both the arms in succession. In the doctrine of conditional dialectics (syadvāda), similarly, of the two contrary attributes one is assigned prominence by relegating the other to the background at a time. This explains the nature of relativism or relativity of the Jaina philosopher. None of the attributes is subordinate to the other, both being active in their own way to discharge their respective functions and constitute the nature of the real.
The doctrine of conditional dialectics (syadvāda) and its results.
1. In the science of logic causality is a universal postulate. But in the conditional dialectic causality is not universally applicable principle which is active only in the gross world. The subtle or the micro-cosmic world is governed by its own rules where the causeeffect relationship becomes too thin to be recognised. The succession of cause and effect becomes meaningless at that stage.