Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

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

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Reals in the faina Metaphysics of all conscious selves; yet their manifoldness is not denied. The five Skandhas, admitted by the Buddhists, viz., The Rūpa, the Vedanā, the Samjñā, the Samskāra and the Vijñāna--all presuppose the last; yet the independence of each Skandha is admitted by the Buddhists. The Jaina's point out that substances and phenomena may thus presuppose one another but thereby their individuality or independence is not to be denied. Dharma and Adharma do presuppose Ākāśa as their all-pervasive abode, but that does not necessitate their identification with it. It is always to be noted tha Ākāśa is what gives space to substances. This function of giving space to substances is obviously different from assisting the motion of a moving thing. Essentially different functions prove the existence of essentially different Reals, and hence Dharma must be supposed to be a separate substance. There is another reason why the function of Dharma cannot be attributed to Ākāśa. The Jaina philosophers, as we shall see later on, divide Space into two parts viz., Lokākāśa or filled space in which the conscious and the unconscious Reals live, move and have their being; and the Aloka or the Anantākāśa, which is infinite void space beyond the Loka, in which there are no substances whatsoever, conscious or unconscious. But it is to be noted that both the Loka and the Aloka are but parts of one Real, the Ākāśa. Now, if Ākāśa were the medium of motion, things would have gone into the Aloka and actually moved there just as they do in the Loka or the world of ours. The fact that the Aloka which is a part of Ākāśa is absolutely devoid of all substances (even the Siddhas or the Liberated Beings cannot enter it) shows that there is a separate Real which is absent in the Aloka and which pervades the Loka and thereby makes the distinction between the Loka and the Aloka possible and real. That is what is meant by saying, -
जादो अलोगलोगो जेसि सष्भावदो। Dharma and Adharma by their real nature make out the difference between the Loka and the Aloka.