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JAIN PHILOSOPHY OF REALITY: A CRICTICAL STUDY
Dr. Samani Shashi Prajna
The Jain system of thought is acredited to have develop the theory of Reality in its own manner from the noumenal and phenomenal aspects. It is unique in its character of synthesizing divergent views inherent in different systems of thought. In this article the learned author has given a critiacl account of the Jain Theory of Reality by explaining its problems and nature in the light of the original texts dealing with the theory. - The Editor
Mahāvīra propounded that our conduct and behaviour are conditioned by our metaphysical speculation. The incentive to social change emerges from a deep and sound metaphysical theory, which requires proper application of logic to experience. Samantabhadra (6th cent. A.D.) an ardent follower of Mahavira argues that the conceptions of bondage and liberation, punya and papa (merits and demerits), heaven and hell, pleasure and pain and the like lose all their relevance and significance, if we exclusively recognize either permanence or momentariness as constituting the nature of substance.1 The affirmation that the momentary disintegration of all things renders impossible the financial transactions, the fact of memory, and the common-place relations of the husband and the wife, the teacher and the taught and the like also indicates the subservience of ethical problems to the nature of being.
Mahāvīra differs from all absolutists in their approach to unfold the inner nature of reality. He weaves the fabric and structure of reality on the authority of indubitable experience and is not swayed in the least by the fascinations of a priori logic.2 Mahāvīra evaluates what
