________________
CO-EXISTENCE AND RELATIVITY
195
'No Both are co-valents The two co-exist to grant a thing reality'
There are numberless modes of a thing and numberless angles of looking at it. The existence of numberless angles on a given plane is the final truth The existence of numberless angles is not a contradiction Our failure to grasp all of these is the cause of apparent contradictions A sea in turmoil is different in looks from a sea in tranquillity To be in turmoil and to be in tranquillity are two modes The substratum of existence underlining both the modes exists before as well as after, in the quiet sea as well as in the disturbed one
Milk is curdled The mode of curd comes into existence The mode of milk is gone The substratum of existence of both the modes, milk and curd, exist before as well as after
The Nyaya school of Indian logic holds that the space is lasting while the flame is transitory The Buddhists believe that the space is transitory and the flame is also transitory
The lastingness of the space and transitoriness of the flame are contradictory in view of the Nayaya school That the flame is transitory as well as lasting is a contradiction according to the Buddhists
Mahavira's Vision of truth differed from both these schools
Said he, 'The flame described as transitory is lasting as well and the space described as lasting is transitory as well The lastingness and the transitoriness are not incompatible They are like two major branches of a single stem A flame is dimmed every moment Hence the Nayaya and the Buddhist schools were not wrong to deem it as transitory The space is never exhausted Hence the Nayaya school was not wrong to deem it as lasting Mahavira never stated that it is wrong to deem the flame as transitory Its transitoriness is evident and hence the view cannot be declared as fallacious He said, 'It is fallacious to call a flame as absolutely transitory ie not at all lasting A flame is a mode When the molecules adopt a fiery shape we call them a flame That the flame is extingui1 'Bhagwatt, 1/133-138
