New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 92

84 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
infinite number of attributes. All the substances have their own separate identities due to their uncommon properties and so the Samkhya-Yoga dictum that every thing is possessed of the nature of everything (sarvam sarvatmakam' is not acceptable to Jainas, who do not admit the evolution of the physical cosmos from the single principle of Prakrti (primordial matter).
The existence of sentience in a sentient being is natural and independent of anything else. In the non-sentient material particle or body there are attributes that are natural and intrinsic, viz. colour, smell, taste and touch. All attributes, momentary or durable, originating from the combination of soul and matter, are dependent on extraneous conditions and factors. A substance is possessed of infinite number of attributes on account of the combination of modes that are intrinsic as well as extrinsic.
Question 3. The Naiyāyikas and others also define the nature of an object by means of a determining characteristic, just as in the system of conditional dialectic (syādvāda) the nature of the real is determined by a specific attribute. What, then, is the difference between the two philosophies, as both of them admit a real as independent of anything else so far as its own nature is concerned? There must be a point of departure between the two which should characterise the Jaina thinker's standpoint as the proponent of relativity as implied in the conditional dialectic (syadvāda).
Answer. In the proposition the soul certainly exists in some respect', that is, in its aspect of sentience, the existence of sentience is affirmed; that does not mean that existence alone is its own characteristic, but that non-existence also is an equally valid aspect of it. Here the question may arise that if the extraneous non-existence is a nature of the soul, then the colour etc. of physical objects should also be considered as the nature of the latter. The solution is obvious. That both existence and non-existence constitute the nature of a thing is attested by experience, just as smoke and fire exist in the same locus, say a kitchen. Existence and non-existence are similarly concomitant attributes, there being a natural relationship (svabhāva-sambandha) between the two. This in essence is the principle of relativity propounded by the doctrine of conditional dialectic (syadvāda).
The nature of the substance does not follow from the doctrine of conditional dialectic. The substance is as it is by nature. One