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ATOM IN JAIN
PHILOSOPHY
47.
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The Jain attitude is, thus, that of non-absolutist realism It neither endorses absolute nihilism nor absolute eternalism, but explains both these extremes as real with reference to different aspects of the same reality Jains do not believe in absolute permanence or total cessation Both permanent and transitory attributes co-exist in a substance Although experi⚫ence never gives us mere persistence of an unchanging content, neither does it ever give us mere change without persistence What we actually experience always exhibits the two aspects of identity and transition together
All mutation (paryaya), argue Jains, must be change of and in something, ie it is nought but succession within an identity, the identity being as essential to the process as succession Where there is no underlying identity there is nothing to change Thus, change is as much real as permanence, but by itself (apart from a background of identity) is, therefore, impossible
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The identity which pervades throughout the succession of changes could be a SUBSTANCE (didvya) or its QUALITY (guna) 5 A thing eg a material mass possesses numerous attributes It is at once white or green, hard or soft rough or smooth etc All these ' qualities belong to or inhere in it What is this IT? It is called substance (dravya) ie a substratum of infinite qualities
A substance does not exist without qualities because nothing can be (or exist) without being in some determinate way, and the qualities of a substance means its existance in a determinate way One cannot divorce the existence of a thing from its
5 Lakhanam payavāṇaṁ tu ubhao assiyă bhave-Utträdhyayana Sûtra, 18-6
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