Book Title: Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra
Author(s): G C Tripathi, Ashokkumar Singh
Publisher: Bhogilal Laherchand Institute of Indology
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128 Studies in Umāsvāti Objection to the Jaina view of existence If we look at four types of existence we would find that by implication Ācārya Umāsvāti has tried to incorporate different views regarding existence. This has also covered the question of relative and absolute existence to some extent. The term absolute has two implications: (i) That which is true for all times and all places, (ii) That which is pure or independent. Thinkers like Dr. Radhakrishnan have criticized Jainism in the following words'Yet in our opinion the Jaina logic leads us to a monistic idealism and so far as the Jainas shrink from it they are untrue to their own logic ... The theory of relativity cannot be logically sustained without the hypothesis of an absolute. ... If Jainism stops short with plurality, which is at best a relative and partial truth, and does not ask whether there is any higher truth pointing to a One which particularises itself in the objects of the world, connected with one another vitally, essentially and immanently, it throws overboard its own logic and exalts a relative truth into an absolute one'.3
Objections Answered This is a criticism of Jainism from an absolutistic point of view. This criticism means that relative existence necessarily presupposes an absolute existence. Ācārya Umāsvāti accepts this absolute existence under the category of dravyāstika existence, which is one all pervading and without beginning and end. Ācārya Umāsvāti has described dravyāstika existence under the synthetic point of view. In perfect knowledge (kevalajñāna), omniscient (kevalī) knows all objects simultaneously. This state of knowledge cannot be comprehended through logic because it surpasses all discursive knowledges which are always successive.
The Jain scriptures clearly state that this type of existence is beyond words, logic and mind:
