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The Impact of Nyāya and Vaiseșika School on Jaina ...
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discord the one-sided views of their contemporary thinkers. Buddha's approach being negative one, culminated in Śūnyavāda but his penetrating vision led him to proclaim that the truth lies in the middle path. He opined that any kind of extreme view was likely to give rise to one-sided opinion, which by creating obsession may obscure our vision. Mahāvīra's approach being positive culminated in Anekāntavāda i.e. theory of Non-absolutism. This nonabsolutistic approach of both the schools are totally absent in NyāyaVaiseșika schools. By the emergence of Nyāya-Vaišeșika schools, the earlier phase of Jaina and Buddhist philosophy were well established. But this does not mean that Nyāya-Vaiseșika philosophy has no impact on Jaina philosophy. It has certain influence on later established concepts of Jaina philosophy, which we shall discuss in this article.
The history of the development of Jaina philosophy can be shown in following four phases: 1. The Āgamic philosophy - 54 cent. BC to 3rd cent. AD II. The period of Logical presentation of Jaina philosophy and
its theory of Anekantavāda -4" cent. A.D. to 7° cent. AD
III. The period of critical evaluation of other schools of Indian
philosophy and - 8" cent. AD to 15th cent. AD IV. The period of applying of Navya-Nyāya technique in Jaina
philosophy - 17 to 18" cent. AD.
Out of these five phases of the development of Jaina philosophy, the first phase may be called purely Āgamic. One cannot trace any impact of Nyāya-Vaišeșika schools on it. It was the second phase where some impacts of Nyāya-Vaiseșika school can be traced on Jaina metaphysical and epistemological concepts. In the third phase, Jaina thinkers, while making a critical estimate of Nyāya and Vaiśeșika schools, adopted the Nyāya-Vaišeșika concepts and
also of their opponents. Jainas by synthesizing these opposite views Jain Education International
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