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Tattvārthavivarana an Appraisal : 95
of Tattva-jñāna. Whatever the little divergence there is, that too is about altogether ordinary things. It is not that there is no room for reconciliation in that divergence or it is opposite like East and West. As a matter of fact, there did not emanate particular difference of opinion between the Digambara and the Svetāmbara schools with regard to the basic tenets of Jaina philosophy. Therefore, the divergence of views seeming in the expositions of the Tattvārtha is not regarded as very serious.”2
Having made this relevant introductory observation, now I come to the main theme of the paper. The Tattvārtha-sūtra consisting of ten chapters deals with the theory of knowledge in its first chapter alone. Unlike the Nyāya-sūtra of Gautama, Umāsvāti does not adopt the threefold procedure of a śāstra in his Tattvārthasūtra. "trayi hi śāstrasya pravsttiḥ -uddeśo laksaņa parīksā ca."'3 viz. the procedure of a scientific work is threefold - enumeration, definition and examination. It represents the canons adopting twofold procedure i.e., enumeration and definition. The celebrated Jaina philosopher Pt. Sukhlal Sanghavi has rightly remarked about the theory of knowledge of the Tattvārtha-sūtra in his observation which I am quoting here in its English rendering - "The discussion of cognition in the theory of knowledge is not cogent and of philosophical style like that of Pravacanasāra, but, bearing resemblance to the canonical style of the discussion of cognition found in Nandīsütra, it merely describes all the divisions and subdivisions of knowledge along with their objects as also points out the difference between right knowledge and nescience."?4
The celebrated Jaina neo-logician Mahopādhyāya Yašovijaya of 17th-18th centuries AD too, has authored an authoritative commentary entitled 'Tattvārtha-vivarana' on the Tattvärtha-sutra along with its auto-scholium. From the point of view of availability and unavailability, Pt. Sukhlal Sanghavi has put the works of Yašovijaya under three categories -
1. Available in complete
