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A SOURCE-POOK IN JAİNA PHILOSOPHỲ
> METAPHYSICAL DISTINCTIONS The Buddhists are phenomenalists and nibilists in their outlook. They advocate the transitoriness of the things of the world. They say everything is in a flux and nothing is permanent. The Jainas accept that though there is impermanence and flux in the world, but it is from the point of view of modes and paryāyas. They say that the Buddhist approach is from the phenomenal point of view specially with reference to the momentary existence. It is the rjusūtranaya. The Jainas say that reality is characterised by the origin (utpāda), vyaya (destruction) and dhrauvya (permanence). Lut these have to be looked from different points of view. The Jaina conception of anekānta is the basic point of view.
The Buddhist philosophy later developed into various schools both realistic and idealistic. The Vaibhāşikas and Sautràntikas were realist schools which posited the reality of external world and ultimate substances (elements) (dharma). The knowledge of these elements is possible, says Vaibhāșika through perception while Sautrāntika make it an object of inference.
: Yogācāra and Madhyamika are idealistic schools of philosophy. Yogācāra advocated the reality of consciousness and the objective storehouse of consciousness (alaya vijñāna) as the ultimate reality. The Mädhyamikas bave denied reality except the sünya. The sünya has been interpreted in different ways, negatively as the white, but positively as the absolute which is anirvacaniya. Here it comes nearer to the advaitic conception of the Brahman.
We should realise that the sünya of the Mädhyamika need not be interpreted as the void or the nothingness. The Madhyamika darsana can be interpreted in terms of absolute idealism as the absolute which cannot be described either by negation or by affirmation or by the permutations of the two, i.e. through the catuṣkoti. So the absolute is indescribable. Hence it is called by the word "Śünya,'s
1 Mukhyo mādhyamiko vivartamakhilam sūnyasya mene jagata. 2 Madhyamika kārikä 1, 7.
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