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126: śramana, Vol 64, No. III, July-Sept. 2013
thing in itself but, as the law gravity describes only attraction or relation between objects and not something that exists independently called gravity, differand is the name for the relation between objects, language, concepts.
Like the Jain principle of anekāntavāda, which takes a both--and position to Vedantic sameness and the Buddhist position of total change, differand can be situated neither in the ontic or the ontological, nor can it be constellated with reference to 'truth', which holds within itself the dichotomy of disclosure or nondisclosure, concealed or unconcealed. Rather, it has close relationships to both presence and absence, but belongs to neither. 40 In his discussion of anekāntavāda, syādvāda and nayavāda, Satkari Mookerjee describes anekāntavāda as the play between existence and non-existence: "if existence were their only characteristic and non-existence were denied as an ideal fiction, the result would be disastrous.
There would be no distinction between one thing and another."41 He elaborates four-kinds of non-existence: “(i) absolute non-existences, e.g. the non-existence of color in air (atyantabhāva); (ii) pre-non-existence, e.g., the non-existence of the effect in the cause (prāgabhāva); (iii) postnon-existence, e.g., the non-existence of an effect after destruction and (iv) mutual non-existence or numberical difference or non-existece of identity of things (itaretarabhāva). Interestingly, the first and fourth principles correspond to the spatial dimension of differance, while the second and third correspond to the temporal elements of differance. Every subject and Other, ever jīva has the predicates of both existence and non-existence: even a single trait can be said to manifest both. From these concepts we can extrapolate our concepts of time (causeeffect-case, etc), identity, substance, change, etc. They are metaphysical principles that describe not only Jaina philosophy of language--the impossibility of language to directly correspond to reality--but also the physical relationships between matter. 42
Because of this, each object can be at the same time similar to and at the same time radically, even infinitely different than everything else, not only in an abstract way, but in a very concrete, very material way. This is irreducibile nature that I will call the “embodied jiva." I allude to the embodied jīva as way of privileging the jīva's relationship in this world, instead of the world of the Omniscients. I do so within the context of what I would argue could be described as a Jain vibrant materialism--one that does not need such strict separation between soul and matter to make its case about ethics and non-violence. Though it is outside the immediate confines of this paper, I believe looking at the concept of karma theory in conjunction with anekāntavāda would provide some fertile ground for further justifying Jainism's philosophical value, without needing to domesticate certain concepts to scriptural authority. In other words, given anekāntavādatranslated as 'doctrine of many-sidedness' and considering that nayavāda and syādvāda every entity can be looked at from infinite number of angles: coming to be, existing and passing away and many more, totally contradictory perspectives.43 This makes the embodied jīva (the Other) irreducible, not just as you may perceive them, but actually, metaphysically and ontologically-utterly physically and spiritually irreducible, even to itself.
