Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 61

The Doctrine of Syādvāda or The Jaina Dialectic :: 57
validity needs consideration. The problem is what kind of validity the Jaina would like to assign to the partial comprehensions. We have seen that the determination of the partial comprehensions is also based on something ontologically true in the structure of the objects, so also the pramāņas that fail to comprehend reality as a whole must proceed on a similar ground. The nayas.as well as the pramānas yield a valid type of knowledge. “Anaya comprehension is also valid as it yields a right cognition of its subject-matter."! A naya is not admitted as an antithesis of a pramāna because it embodies a type of knowledge. It is a part of the pramānas. A naya is neither a pramāņa nor an antithesis is of pramāna, being free from contradiction."2 Vidyānanda also establishes a relation between the nayas and the pramānas by saying that the former are the parts of the latter."3 At the same time the Jaina would like to emphasize the fact that a pramāņa transcends the totality of the nayas by gaining a different essence. The pramāņa does not oppose the possibility of the constituent nayas but oppose the possibility of the constituent nayas but accepts them as elements in its own structure. When the nayas go to constitute a pramāņa, their individuality though not totally wiped out, does not remain the same as it was in isolation. In this sense alone we can say that nayas lose their existence when they enter into a system to yield a pramāna. A pramāna is an integrated system of the nayas, and it is a system in which as Blenshard holds. “integration would be so complete that no part could be seen for what it was without seeing its relation with the whole, and the whole itself could be understood only through the contribution of every
part."4
1. Vidyānandin: Slokavārtika, 1.65 2. Nayavivarana, verse 10 3. Cf. Vidyānandin: Slokavārtika, 1.6.5 4. Blenshard: Nature of Thought, Vol. II, p. 267