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130]
[ III. 16, 22
smell etc. In reality only the substance is true while all its various particular aspects being due to external causes are illusory. What are, therefore, Paryayas in Jain Sastras and what are in ordinary parlance called Gunas are fundamentally not at all different from the substance. In fact the supposed difference between them is not real.
SANMATI-TARKA
The view of absolute identity is not accepted by our author who takes his stand on the view of Anekānta (manysided nature of things). He neither subscribes to view of absolute difference on the one hand, nor to the view of absolute identity on the other. But as the view of absolute difference has already been refuted by persons holding the view of absolute identity, here the author deals with the view of absolute identity and establishes that the view of absolute identity is also wrong being one sided and that the truth lies in the middle that is between a substance and its quality there is both a difference and identity.
The soundest argument against the view of absolute identity is this that if we consider that all the particulars of a substance are regarded as false and as due to merely external causes, we can not account for the degrees of intensity or otherwise as are found in the particulars or qualities. For instance, we find that even in the quality of blackness or sweetness there are different degrees. Some things are utterly black, some are slightly black; some things are sweetest; other are slightly sweet. Now if the qualities of a thing or a substance are merely illusory or if the qualities are due to merely external
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