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The Jaina Theory of Liberation and the Non-absolute :: 247
what is external to them. The absolute is true because it and only it has no external environment, and has attained being its own other."l Though contradiction is the very soul of Hegelian dialectic, yet it appears to lose its import in the Hegelian absolute. Mc Taggart says: "Hegel regards the Absolute as a unity. He regards it, not as an external or mechanical unity, not even as an organic unity, but as the deepest unity possible one in which the parts have no meaning but their unity, while that unity again, has no meaning but its differentiations."2 K.C. Bhattacharya is also of opinion that "the Hegelian subordinate distinction to unity while the Nyāya assigns priority to distinction." Herein we see a great resemblance between Hegelian and Sankarite conceptions of the absolute. Both are obtained by rising to the higher and higher systems or universals, and in ultimacy contradiction and opposition vanish totally. The former holds the differences to be real, while for the latter they are delusions. But when the thesis and the antithesis are mutually different and opposed without implying any unity, the unity of the absolute cannot be obtained from them. P.T. Raju has correctly remarked: "How the contradiction is solved? If the terms that contradict are left as such, then they do not cease to conflict. If they are not left as such then the terms themselves cease to be."4 Actually speaking by simply rising to the higher systems contradiction cannot be got rid of. Dr. Haldar has also pointed out that “Hegel goes from the lower to the higher without solving the contradictions of the former, and wants to include them under the latter."5 As already mentioned T.R.V. Murti draws a distinction between the Hegelian and the Jaina dialects by calling the former as conjunctive and the latter as disjunctive. By this he means that “Hegel takes the synthesis as a
1. Ibid., p. 108 2. Mc Taggart: Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, p. 58. 3. Studies in Philosophy, Krishnacandra Bhattacharya.
(Edited by Gopinath Bhattacharya), p. 333 4. P.T. Raju: Thought and Reality, p. 81 5. Ibid., p. 78
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