________________
350
Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
say that the ultimate substance which is unknowable, manifests itself in the physical and the mental phenomena of our experiential world and when the Kantians under the stress of the necessity of practical reason urge that the positive existence of some of the transcendental ultimates of pure reason must be admitted, they really put forward the statement of the fifth Bhanga. When the Mādhyamika's state that our Vāsanā leads us to attribute existence to the Anirvāçya Sūņya, their statement is in a way a form of the fifth predication of the Syādvāda. The conception of the ultimate substance as inscrutable and at the same time manifesting itself through specific channels is certainly different from its conception as simply inscrutable. Similarly, the conception of the Kantian postulates of practical reason is admittedly different from the conception of the transcendental things-in-themselves of pure reason. It has been pointed out by a good many critics of the Madhyamika theory that the Sūņya as existent is certainly different from the Sūnya, pure and simple. There is a difference between the Advaita view of the Brahma as simply the Avān-manaso-goçara or inapproachable through sources of empirical knowledge and the view of the Bhedābheda school that the same unknowable Brahma in some of his aspects is manifested in the world of sense. If Nelson's nature were simply an enigma, people of England would have been in a fix; it was because it was more than that, it was because they knew that in spite of the inscrutability of his nature, Nelson would fight when there would be need for it, that the people of England made him their leader in the naval war against Napolean. In the same manner, it may be said that inexpressibility of his nature may make the Arhat an object of awe to the seekers of deliverance. It is because the Arhat is more than that, that is to say, it is because the Arhat in spite of the inexpressibility of his nature is a deliverer that the Jaina thinkers have laid down rules for his worship. At the same time, it should be observed that the Arhat of this fifth Bhanga is something more than what he is in the first. While the Arhat of the first Bhanga
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary org
