Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

Author(s): S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 30

26 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
function of the two attributes. If position and negation are taken to be dharmas or traits, or implicates of a real as the Jaina does, the aforesaid inconsistency must not come in. All the traits connected with a unitary mode are implied simultaneously, but for their prediction they require different contexts. Samantabhadra rightly remarks: "Who does not desire all to be existent with respect to its own identity and non-existent with respect to the identity of the others”! Hemacandra remarks: “From the view-point of its own identity everything exists, and from the view point of other's identity it does not exist. If it is not so everything will be found to exist simultaneously or it will lose even its own identity.2 Position and negation must be obtained simultaneously in a real, they do not repel each other. Unqualified existence or non-existence have no meaning, they must be qualified by proper contexts not only for the sake of predication but also for the sake of existence. Besides the traits, that effect self-establishment of a real and its differentiation from what is other than itself, must be held as valid constituents. Joachim has correctly observed: "And all movement, and process, and life certainly involve a negative element. They exhibit a being which emerges in contrast with not-being. They manifest an identity which perhaps overcomes otherness and difference, but assuredly does not extinguish them.”3 “Such negations would not barely exclude or vaguely imply a positive to be revealed by the advance of knowledge. They would, in and by their denials, throw into relief the positive aspect of the otherness which they emphasize, just as the affirmations within the system would also negate, in-as-much, as, to reveal the distinctions of that which they affirm from its others.”4 To conclude negation cannot be dismissed as a non-entity or a mental construct. It obtains along with position in a real.
1. Samantabhadra's Ātptamīmāṁsā, verse. 15 2. Hemacandra: Pramānamimāṁsā, p. 12 3. Joachim : Nature of Truth, p. 122 4. Ibid., p. 138