Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 35

The Anekānta Theory of Existence :: 31
views is based on something ontologically true; and reality must yield such views, if an analytical approach to it is made.
Substance as Unity-cum-Diversity
Parker states: “To make identity real there must be some substantial core which persists, despite of continual change”.! In a dynamic system of philosophy reality cannot be split up into two parts, one of which shows dynamism while the other determines persistence, for in that case the principle of dynamism will not be applicable to a part of reality. The flow of reality is ever continuous, it is a process wherein momentary modes can be recognized as pointevents. Still it implies the identity of the flow. A number of variations are attributed to the same entity, still there is a factor which is responsible for the perception of identity. Permanence and impermanence are the mutually concomitant traits of reality. So both of them are supposed to coexist in the same real. This permanent element is the substantial core behind the variations....If change implies substance, substance equally implies change. As the conception of change depends upon the reference of them to an identical substance, so we can think of the latter only as the connecting principle of changes. Substance is not an unknown and unknowable substratum in which determinations inhere, but it is the principle which finds expression in its successive states and, as such is the link that connects them with each other”.? To conceive the universe as a process or a function just raises the question 'whose process, whose function can it possibly be?' Bahm rightly holds; "substance as that which stands under or remains through change. Whenever there is a functioning there is a substance,...Each entity has its substantial and
1. Parker: The Self and Nature. p. 32 2. H.L. Haldar: Neo Hegelianism, p. 35