Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad

Page 10

INTRODUCTION
becoming as two different and complementary ways of our viewing the same thing. Reality in the Jaina view is a permanent subject of changing states. To be, to stand in relation to, to be active, to act upon other things, to obey law, to be a cause, to be a permanent subject of states, to be the same to-day as yesterday, to be identical inspite of its varying activities -- these are the Jaina conceptions of reality. Mere becoming is as much an abstraction as mere being. In short, being and becoming are complements of the full notion of a reality." He explains the two basic views - substance view (dravyārthikanaya) and modal view (paryāyārthikanaya). Each view carried to the extreme denies the reality of the other. Each view then accepts the one at the expense of the other. One puts emphasis on the universal and eternal to the exclusion of the particular and changing. The Sänkara Vedānta represents the extreme form of the substance view and Buddhism represents the absolute modal view. The Jaina system reconciles these two opposing views by according equal status to substance and its modes. This leads Gandhi to the consideration of the Jaina method of analysis (Nayavāda) and synthesis (Syādvāda). He answers Sankarācārya's criticism of Syādvāda in the following words : “The inherence of contrary aspects in a single idea or object seems impossible to the unsynthetic mind. Sankara, the well-known Vedānta scholar, has fallen into a great error when he states that the Jaina doctrine should not be accepted, because it is impossible that contradictory attributes, such as being and non-being, should, at the same time, belong to one and the same thing; just as observation teaches that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment.' The Jainas do not teach that a thing can be hot and cold at the same moment, but they do teach that a thing cannot be hot absolutely, and cannot be cold absolutely; it is hot under certain definite circumstances, and cold under others. The Jainas do not teach that being and non-being (of itself) should at the same time belong to one and the same thing. What they teach is that in a thing there is being of itself and non-being