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Anekānta and the Concept of Absolutism in Jainism : 147
of mundare existence have no relevance and as such all the dualities, contradictory traits, aspects or theses, etc. are set aside, 11 as they hinder the attainment of undifferentiated consciousness (nirvikalpa upayoga). Jaina concept of Absolute is an ever-present awareness of the "Absolute within", awareness of divinity, the light within to realize Godhood, i.e. infinite knowledge, infinite bliss, etc. This Jaina concept of absolute, transcendental (pakşātikrānta) Self, which transcends the empirical or conditioned state of the Self, seems much more convincing and realistic than the two extremes of Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism.
Vedānta reaches its absolute by assigning "unreality" to the forms of existence and knowledge, i.e. the objective reality of the world consisting of individuals selves and material objects, all of which are said to be subsumed in one and only one "Absolute", the monistic unchanging reality, the Universal Cosmic Brahman. Such a concept or idea of an all encompassing Self, such as the Vedāntic Ātman or Brahman, J. Krishnamurti observes, is "just another thought construction and another manifestation of illusion." 12 The eternal reality of the metaphysical soul substance or Brahman of the Vedantin, G. Srinivasan points out, exists independently of any relation to temporal empirical existence and as such necessarily falls outside the scope of phenomenological analysis. The Jaina concept of the transcendental Self or pure consciousness, on the other hand, is to be regarded as "transcendence in immense", to use G. Srinivasan's phraseology, and as such it is necessarily "related" [in temporal empirical existence] to the modes of intentional consciousness. It does not mean transcendence from one reality to another of from unreality to reality but from one poise of consciousness to another within a single realm of consciousness. 13 Self-realization thus viewed is self-transcendence.
The Buddhist school of philosophy gradually drops the possible and even the conceivable characteristics of reality and reaches the void or sūnya as the absolute. Buddhism argues that
