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Faith of an Abhavya: Kundakunda's Heretical Dialectic....
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methodological framework by which we can evaluate empirical and religious claims. Specifically, vyavahāra, as the empirical perspective, is a logical foundation that Jaina scientists could potentially base their ongoing exploration upon. Kundakunda's Dialectic: Its Potential and Limitations Kundakunda's use of vyavahāra and niscaya is unique in that he makes the two perspectives inseparable from one another. Both represent modes of epistemology that provide insights into the apprehension of reality, whether through intellect, will, feeling, emotion, cognition or pure consciousness. Although Kundakunda clearly privileges the niścaya viewpoint as the ultimate, he maintains a relationality between the two that seems promising.
He opens his text by putting the pure jīva in relation to empirical actions and attitudes of Right Conduct, Right Faith and Right Knowledge.28 He initially places the transcendental Self as the "beautiful ideal in the whole universe,'9 and he recognizes “the proposition that all living beings are characterized by desire for worldly things and enjoyment of the same."30 He validates the Knower as both “unique and self-identical" to reality, clarifying his place between Brahmanic Vedānta and Buddhistic perspectives that preserves empirical uniqueness as well as ultimate Real." He unequivocally states that “From the vyavahāra point of view, conduct, belief and knowledge are attributes (as different characteristics) of the Knower, the Self®32 and should be understood in relation to a Self that is undifferentiated. In this way there appears to be a space where the vyavahāra and niscaya perspective require one another. Kundakunda gestures toward the invaluable role played by the vyavahāra perspective when he writes: Just as a non-Aryan (foreigner) cannot be made to understand anything except through the medium of his non-Aryan language, so the knowledge of the Absolute cannot be communicated to the. ordinary people except through the vyavāhara point of view.33 The empirical world seems to play a necessary role in perceiving the niscaya-naya. Knowing the scriptures, and utilizing the belief,
