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K. C. BHATTACHARYYA
639
Influence of Jainism The principal non-Vedantic influence in this phase was that of Jainism.58 About 1920 he studied and was impressed by the Jain philosophical work Prameya Kamala Martanda.59 In the first chapter, after considering the various Indian schools of philosophy and discussing doubt and theories of error, the author presents his own theory of knowledge as that which reveals both itself and its object. In the second he refutes all absolutistic metaphysical theories in typical Jain fashion. In the third he discusses epistemological problems: memory, recognition, hypothetical argument, inference, causality, nonperception, authority. In the fourth he discusses the theories of relations and universals, distinguishing between continuant and recurrent universals (i.e., things and classes). In the fifth he considers what appears to be knowledge. In the sixth he analyzes the Jain categories of whole-expression (sakaladesa) and part-expression (vikaladesa) and defends the thesis that the former concerns ways of knowing (pramanas) and the latter concerns theories of philosophy (nayas).co
Bhattacharyya's immediate reaction to this book was a paper "The Jaina Theory of Anekanta”61 presented to his seminar at Dacca in 1921 (published 1925 in the first issue of the Philosophical Quarterly, reprinted 1943 in Jaina Antiquary), which introduces the third phase, although chronologically contemporary with the first. In analyzing anekantavada (non-absolutism), which is the Jain theory of truth, he affirms the category of alternation in the first sentence. "The Jaina theory of anekanta or the manifoldness of truth is a form of realism which not only asserts a plurality of determinate truths but also takes each truth to be an indetermination of alternative truths”
58 The influence of Jain logic on K. G. Bhattacharyya's philosophy (my sabbatical project) was the point of departure for this study. For Jain logic see my article "Seven-Valued Logic in Jain Philosophy," IPQ, 4 (1964), 68-93.
59 Prameya knowable, kamala lotus, martanda sun: "the light which makes the truth unfold." Prameyakamal Martand by Shri Prabha Chandra (980-1065, a Digambara ("sky clad," i.e., naked) monk], a Commentary on Manik Nandi's Pareksha Mukh Sutra, edited by Mahendra Kumar Shastri (Bombay, 1912, 755 pp.). I am indebted to Dr. K. Sivarama of Banaras Hindu University for calling my attention to the significance of this work in the development of Bhattacharyya's thought.
60 I am indebted to Professor D. M. Datta for a summary of this untranslated work.
61 I am also indebted to Professor Datta for reading this extremely difficult work with me in a leisurely way. His own small mind, Datta remarked, nibbled a grain of truth like a squirrel nibbling a grain of corn, while Bhattacharyya's mind was like an elephant which swallows a whole jackfruit.
