Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 58

54 Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
total of relative truths in the course of their development, the relative truths represent relatively faithful reflections of an object existing independently of man, that those reflections become more and more faithful, that very scientific truth, notwithstanding its relative nature, contains an element of absolute truth." The Jaina touches what Lenin calls an element of the absolute truth by mentioning the non-relational side of reality. To be relational and to be non-relational are the two concomitant traits of a real, and they require different contexts for their predication. We cannot maintain one or the other of them without specifying the necessary context. It is why the Jaina accepts the relational-cum-non-relational nature of reality. The question whether he upholds a relative absolutism or an absolute relativism, will find meaning only in the non-absolute philosophy of the Jaina. Outside the span of Anekānta philosophy a combination of relativism and absolutism will not be possible. The Jaina philosophy of non-absolutism can be interpreted as relative absolutism or absolute relativism by supplying the necessary context; and in that the admission of the one will never be antagonistic to the admission of the other but there must be a difference of contexts applied. Samantabhadra remarks: "Nonabsolutism, which is established by the pramāṇa and nayas, is non-absolute. It is non-absolute as comprehended with the help of a pramāṇa, and becomes absolute when a naya is applied to it."2
The Prāmaņa Type of Knowledge and its Essential Nature
The naya is not the only form of knowledge. "Knowledge is accomplished", saya Umāsvāti, "by means of pramāņas and nayas."2 Generally we come across two types of knowledge. Firstly, there is a type which follows the
1. B.G. Tiwari: Lenin's Doctrine of Absolute and Relative Truth, pp. 59 and 61
2. Samantabhadra: Bṛhat-svayambhu-stotra, verse 103
3. Umäsväti: Tattvärtha-sutra, 1.6