Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai

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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
ing to the Vedāntist observer, the objects of perception are varied, each having a nature distinguished from the nature of others. Why should we look upon this experience of multiplicity as unreal? Why should we go against the yield of our perception and say that the objects of our experience although, appearing as varied, are not really varied at all ?
The Vedāntists, of course, as we have seen, point out that our valid perception presents its object as positive only and that this goes to show that the one, non-dual positive Brahma is the only Real, underlying all the apparently varied objects of our experience. The Jainas repudiate this Vedāntist contention about the so-called positive (Vidhāyaka) character of the objects of experience. They point out that an object of our experience has certainly a positive character; but as affirmation is impossible without negation, the positive aspect of the character of a thing involves also a negative aspect. The perception of a Blue object is possible only as its differentiation from Yellow ones and so on. It is thus not correct to say that valid perception presents its object as abstract Existence; its positive character does not mean that it is devoid of distinctive contents of its own. Valid perception, according to the Jainas show that its object has a peculiar and individual nature of its own, distinguished from that of the other objects. The Nirvikalpa may consist in a consciousness of the barest Existence but it is too hazy and indistinct a mode of apprehension to be looked upon as a valid source of knowledge. We cannot depend upon the Nirvikalpa for a knowledge of the real nature of the things under observation. Our valid perception, on the contrary, shows that the things of our experience are not f:FFTTT, that the one, nondual Brahma is not the only Real, underlying all of them but that the universe is constituted of a multiplicity of Reals.
We shall end this account of the Jaina criticism of the Vedāntic monism, with a quotation from Sri Ratnaprabha Suri's commentary: